


Aubade

by makbaes (gentlemindedlostgirl)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Chenle is Kun's son, College, M/M, Single Dad Kun, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-09-01 12:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16764916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentlemindedlostgirl/pseuds/makbaes
Summary: Aubade: A poem or piece of music appropriate at dawn or early morning.Johnny knows Kun. /Everyone knows Kun. Kun is the strange kid who smuggles too much food from the dining hall every day. And no one knows why. But Johnny is determined to find out.Kun, meanwhile, is a young man with a big heart, good intentions, and a toddler who needs him.





	1. Presto

**Author's Note:**

> I....am not really sure what this is yet. But I hope you guys like it anyway.
> 
> Feel free to leave me thoughts on twitter @goldennmakbae or in my curious cat curiouscat.me/goldennmakbae

Johnny knew Kun. Of course he did.  _ Everyone  _ knew Kun. 

That is to say, Johnny didn’t know Kun personally. The two of them had an intro to philosophy course together Johnny’s sophomore year, Kun’s freshman year. And when you attend a university as small as the one that they do, it’s hard not to run into people from time to time in passing. Even if you’ve only spoken to them once, you still always give them a little wave and say hello. It’s polite. There’s no way to avoid them. Especially not in the singular dining hall on campus. It’s a terrible amalgamation of cheaply made, unhealthy food. But students are required a meal plan, and it’s the only place to eat, so they make do with what they’ve got. 

And  _ everyone’s  _ seen how weird Kun acts in the dining hall. 

It’s not unusual for students so smuggle some food back to their dorms. Hell, it’s economical. Johnny did the math once his freshman year when he got pissed off at the undercooked, unseasoned chicken the dining hall forced him to eat. Each meal at “Kitchen” costs twenty dollars. If you were going to spend that much money on mediocre food, you might as well smuggle pastries--the only good thing there--into the paper coffee cups to take home and enjoy during a midnight study session as a reward. 

But Kun was different. Kun took Tupperware containers to Kitchen and filled them with servings of bad macaroni and cheese. Or plain pasta with nothing on it. Or an entire container just of dry cereal. He loaded his backpack with clementines from the bowl on the counter. On Fridays, he would take one cookie back with him too. It was weird. It had always been weird, and it was a marvel to Johnny that none of the dining staff had ever confronted him about it. But none of the other students ever questioned him either. It felt...rude. Like an invasion of privacy. 

“What do you think he does with all of it?” Johnny asked, turning to his roommate, Taeyong, who was currently poking at the most pathetic looking salad Johnny had ever seen. “There’s no way he eats it all. He’s too skinny.”

“What does it matter?” Taeyong asked. “Maybe he has friends over or something.”

“Kun doesn’t have friends,” Johnny pointed out. 

“He’s friends with that Ten guy.”

“Ten’s skinnier than Kun, he’s not eating six containers of mac and cheese.”

“Maybe he hoards it like a dragon,” Taeyong said before taking a bite of his food. “Is that what you wanna hear?” he asked, his mouth still full of salad. 

Johnny admittedly  _ did  _ get a little chuckle out of the idea of Kun sleeping on top of a large pile of bad campus food. The pasta would be squishy, at the very least, given how overcooked it always was. Maybe he’d never know what Kun did with all of the food. But when you went to a small college in a small town in the middle of nowhere, any strange mystery was enough to keep people talking. And Kun, for his part, never addressed any of the rumors. He  _ had  _ to know people were talking about him. But he never refuted any of what they said. He simply let them talk. He had to wonder why that was. 

Johnny, on the other hand, had never been able to keep his mouth shut. The previous year, when he had caught wind of a rumor that he and Taeil had been using Taeil’s TA office hours to fuck, he had been quick to shut that shit down. He  _ had  _ been fucking Taeil, just not during office hours. He had some respect for the fact that Taeil had really needed that position for his resume. Johnny didn’t give a shit what the people here said about him--as long as it was the truth. 

Taeyong was different, he knew. Taeyong had people-pleaser syndrome and was constantly worried that the people around him were speaking negatively about him behind his back. They never were--at least from what Johnny could tell. People, as a rule, didn’t ever have anything too bad to say about Taeyong. They might make a comment here and there if they were doing a group project with him because his roommate had a nasty habit of micro-managing. But they stopped complaining once they got their grades back. Taeyong was meticulous, and it meant that they got their work done early and well.

“Aren’t you fucking Ten?” Johnny wondered out loud. 

Taeyong nearly choked on his food. “I’m--we’re--”

“Fucking,” Johnny finished. 

“ _ No,”  _ Taeyong countered. “We fool around, but we’ve never...no, we haven’t fucked.”

“Why not? You’re ridiculously into him, everyone knows that.”

“Not  _ everyone. _ ”

“You’re right, clearly you have some delusions on the matter.”

“It’s just physical, he wouldn’t--”

“We’re not having this fight again,” Johnny said, pointing his fork towards Taeyong in a vaguely threatening, accusatory manner. “He’s into you. He brought you tea when you were having that breakdown two weeks ago. Casual flings don’t bring tea for their casual flings.”

“They do if they’re Pisces,” Taeyong shrugged. 

“You need to stop hanging out with Yuta and his star charts.”

They sat bickering like that for a little while longer. It was all in good fun, it wasn’t an  _ actual  _ fight. Taeyong and Johnny had been roommates since their freshman year of college, and they had only gotten into two real fights. The first had been their second weekend at school their first year when it became clear to Johnny that his vaguely messy single-child habits were  _ not  _ going to fly. They hadn’t actually screamed at each other, but their voices had been raised so much the RA had been called over and Johnny had actually considered asking for a roommate switch. He was now more than thankful that he hadn’t. The second had been the previous year when Taeyong had accused Johnny of self-destructive behavior. 

He hadn’t been  _ wrong,  _ really. Johnny had found himself in a cycle of work-sleep-mess around with Taeil that hadn’t been exactly healthy. But he hadn’t actually recognized the problem with it until Taeyong had pointed out that he hadn’t seen anyone besides him or Taeil in three weeks. Yuta was getting worried--which was saying something because Yuta was the most reckless, carefree person that Johnny knew. If  _ Yuta  _ was worried, there was an issue. And looking back, Johnny knew the exhaustion must have shown in his face. And it must have been hard for his roommate, who’d always had too much “I want to save the world” in him, to watch. But he had always been defensive, so they had a row about it where Johnny told Taeyong that who he slept with was none of his business, and Taeyong fought back by saying he didn’t give a  _ crap  _ who Johnny slept with, but when was the last time he’d called his mom? 

That had been the last straw. But it also made Johnny pause. He called his mom  _ every  _ Friday night. And they talked for at least an hour. Often longer. And it was only after Johnny had snapped at Taeyong that  _ he  _ wasn’t his mom and that he needed to stop  _ nagging  _ him that he realized...he hadn’t called his mom once that month.  _ That  _ was a problem. So he sorted himself out. He went into the hall and apologized to his mother. He stopped isolating. Slowly, not all at once, but it was progress nonetheless. And two months after the argument, once Johnny was back to his normal routine, he apologized to Taeyong. He didn’t admit the other had been  _ right,  _ he had too much pride for that. But he did say he was sorry for snapping. In the end, he couldn’t be happier with his choice in roommate. The two of them were a ridiculous pair, but they fit. The two of them, along with Yuta, and Taeil, before he graduated, had been the  _ perfect  _ friendship circle. He wouldn’t change anything. 

Even if sometimes Taeyong flung damp lettuce at him while they were having a non-argument. 

* * *

“That Johnny guy’s staring at you again,” Ten hummed from his seat across from Kun, a few tables away from where Johnny and Taeyong appeared to be having an in-depth argument that involved the throwing of produce. 

Kun rolled his eyes. “People are  _ always  _ staring at me in here. He’s probably wondering why I took such a large helping of the world’s worst spaghetti and meatballs today.”

“To be fair, if I didn’t know why I’d think it was really fucking weird too.”

Kun just shrugged. It didn’t bother him any, the way people spoke about him. It didn’t affect him any. He was still getting nearly straight As. If he got his masters--which felt like a pipe dream, if he was to be honest--he might be able to work as a children’s school counselor, which was all he actually wanted to do. He didn’t think he’d be able to, though. Not with his current circumstances. Ten was endlessly optimistic about it, recklessly so. Sometimes it was exactly what he needed to push forward. Sometimes it just made him feel like Ten wasn’t looking at reality correctly. 

But Ten had always been like that. Ten could waltz right into traffic and the cars would all stop for him. The universe seemed to bend to his command. It was impressive if Kun really thought about it. Maybe if Ten said it would all work out fine for him, then it would. 

“Speaking of Johnny--well, speaking of Johnny’s  _ roommate  _ anyway, you’re gonna want to bust out the heavy duty headphones tonight.”

Kun groaned and buried his head in his hands. “I love having a single room,” he said. “But I  _ hate  _ being your next door neighbor.”

“Not my fault he’s a screamer,” Ten mused, his eyes alight with near disgusting levels of mischief. “I’ve put my hand over his mouth before, it doesn’t stop him.”

Kun had said once, relatively early on into his friendship with Ten, that he  _ really  _ didn’t need to know all of the dirty exploits of his hookups. Ten seemed to take this as a suggestion rather than a rule. At this point, it just took up less energy from Kun if he didn’t argue it. It had stopped phasing him after about a year. At at least this time Ten seemed to be hooking up with someone he might actually have real feelings for. It was about damn time. And Ten was going to ask that Taeyong out on a date if Kun had to drag him by the ear to do it. Ten deserved to be happy. He deserved to be happy with the boy that he liked, even if Ten might be loathe to admit it. 

“I still don’t believe that you two have never actually fucked.”

“It’s the truth!” Ten chimed. “And if he makes noises like that just from getting eaten out, I can’t  _ wait  _ to hear what he sounds like when we--”

“Just tell me what time he’s coming over so I can be blasting music and cartoons  _ long  _ before then.”

“Eight, and you’re no fun. I’m  _ still  _ holding out the invitation to join. I think he’d be into it.”

“You wish,” Kun scoffed with a heavy roll of his eyes.

“You  _ know  _ I do!” Ten whined. “And the fact of the matter is that you haven’t gotten laid in the last year and a half, and it’s making me sad.”

“You  _ know  _ why I haven’t,” Kun pointed out, giving Ten a near lethal look. That wasn’t fair. Ten of all people knew why Kun didn’t go out, why Kun didn’t party, or attend any clubs, or do anything but go to his classes, the dining hall, and his dorm. He hated when Ten tried to hold it against him when he knew the reason he didn’t go out far outweighed any reason to socialize. 

“I could watch him while you go have fun for one night,” Ten offered. “Or Doyoung could--you know he  _ adores  _ Doyoung. And Doyoung loves him right back.”

Kun considered that for a moment. They’d had this conversation before. They had it at least once a week. It never got easier. He knew it would probably be good for him--it would probably be good for  _ both  _ of them if he did. But every time he thought about it, there was a painful tug in his chest that called him selfish for even thinking about it. 

“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “He needs me, Tennie.”

Ten sighed. He hated this fight--and it  _ was  _ a fight, even if it never exploded like one. It was a fight because Kun would never give in as much as Ten tried to argue. Kun always erred on the side of self-sacrificing too much. And Ten had known Kun long enough to chalk it up to his need for self-sufficiency and his deep-seated fear of being in anybody’s debt. But that didn’t make it any less frustrating to watch. Sometimes he wanted to smack Kun upside the head and remind him that he’s twenty years old and doesn’t have to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. 

But it’s not like Kun would listen anyway. 

“Listen, I know Doyoung has to buckle down for an orgo exam this weekend. So he can do it in your dorm. And you and I can go out for a couple of drinks, and it’ll be fine.”

“I can’t  _ drink,  _ Ten!” Kun exclaimed like Ten had just suggested the two of them go rob a bank. 

“You can have  _ one  _ drink,” Ten countered in return. “And you can have fun for a few hours. And, get this, it  _ won’t  _ kill you.”

“Sounds fake,” Kun said. “But…” he sighed. “His favorite show is having a marathon Friday night. We have three hours where he won’t even notice if I’m gone. If you can get Doyoung to be there...I’ll go.”

“Thank  _ God, _ ” Ten sighed, feeling a sense of utter relief and like maybe,  _ maybe  _ for the first time in a while that he might be getting somewhere with Kun. 

* * *

Taeyong had left to go to his last lecture of the day (“Why does anyone  _ start  _ a lecture at six thirty pm? To make me miserable? Is that it?”), which left Johnny munching on bad French fries by himself at the table. He tossed more than one cursory glance over at Kun, who was still sitting with Ten over at his table. He couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but he didn’t need to. He wasn’t particularly interested in their conversation. 

But his bored, idle curiosity  _ was  _ interested in Kun. 

He’d dyed his hair blond recently. Johnny had never been able to imagine the younger male with any hair color other than they honey brown he had been sporting for as long as Johnny knew him. But this was nice too. It was...cute if he lacked a better word for it. The October chill was starting to settle in, and so gone were Kun’s usual pastel linen shirts to be replaced by sweaters of various levels of chuky knit. This one was white, and it looked to warm for weather that wasn’t actually  _ that  _ cold yet. But he didn’t seem to mind it much. If he was too hot, he didn’t show it. He was too busy laughing at whatever Ten had just said. 

When there were about five hundred people in your entire school, you knew everybody. And you knew at least  _ something  _ about everybody--especially their dating history and sexual exploits and who they made out with during that stereotypical game of spin the bottle at the fine arts party that one time. Which meant that Johnny should have  _ anything  _ on Kun. But he didn’t. As far as anyone was aware, Kun hadn’t dated anyone since he started school. He hadn’t hooked up with anyone. He didn’t even  _ go  _ to parties as a rule. He went to class, he went to work, he went back to his dorm. Sometimes he had Doyoung or Ten in tow--which had started a rumor, once, that the three of them were in a polyamorous relationship. That  _ quickly  _ got shut down when someone caught Doyoung and Jaehyun together during homecoming--but usually alone. 

That surprised Johnny for reasons he couldn’t put into words. Not that  _ he  _ cared who Kun dated or if he dated. It didn’t matter to him. He couldn’t speak for the kind of person Kun was. But from what Johnny understood from the class they had together, Kun seemed like a nice guy. He was kind, hardworking, seemed to have his heart in the right place. And if he  _ had  _ to say so...Kun wasn’t bad to look at. So it wasn’t that Johnny  _ cared  _ who Kun was dating. It just seemed strange to him that nobody was  _ trying  _ to. 

When Kun’s phone rang, he frowned down at it and started frantically gathering his things as he offered Ten an apologetic expression. Ten, for his part, seemed to understand that whoever was on the other end of the phone was more important than whatever conversation they had been having. Which just made Johnny all the more curious. He had only ever seen Kun hang out with him or Doyoung, and he didn’t think  _ Doyoung  _ would warrant such a reaction. 

Kun was fiddling with his jacket about a table away from Johnny, his phone balanced between his elbow and his ear as he spoke.

“Shh, shh, Chenle,” Kun said into the phone. “No, baby, shh, please don’t cry.”

It was quiet. Johnny shouldn’t have been able to hear. And he  _ definitely  _ shouldn’t be listening to what was clearly a private call. But…

“I’ll be home soon, okay? I promise. I’m on my way. I’ve got dinner.”

There was a pause, and then Kun’s face lit up into a bright smile. “There’s my boy. I love you too. See you soon.”

Johnny watched Kun go down the hall. Johnny had thought that conversation would answer things for him as to why the strange, but pretty boy brought so much food home. Instead, he found that he just had more questions.


	2. Allegro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Stop,” Ten scolded, smacking his friend’s arm. “You’re doing it again.”
> 
> “Doing what?” Kun said, though he knew the answer. 
> 
> “Thinking about Chenle--who’s fine--and not living in the moment.”
> 
> Kun supposed he'd never been very good at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 2! I'm still trying to sort out what exactly this IS but I hope you like it anyway. 
> 
> My goal was to post every Tuesday until this finishes, but my personal life just decided to crash and burn a little bit. So apologies if that's not the case. 
> 
> Thank you SO much for all the love on the first chapter! The comments made my week! I plan on going back and responding to every single one, but I haven't had the time yet. 
> 
> Please continue to leave me your thoughts, I could really use them!

“Don’t go,” Chenle whined as he sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with tiny toddler fists. Kun’s heart broke from the other side of the dorm where he was pulling on his jacket and getting ready to go out. 

“I have to, Lele,” Kun frowned, crossing the room again to press a kiss to the child’s forehead. “You know I have to. But Uncle Ten will be here in an hour, and he’ll hang out with you for a little while, okay?” 

It broke his heart to leave him. He couldn’t imagine the kind of loneliness this kid felt cooped up in the dorm all day. He was  _ working  _ on finding a good public school for him but he just needed a little bit more time. It was impossible to find one with an opening so late in the year. But Chenle deserved better than this. He wouldn’t wish this level of isolation on any child, let alone his own son. But as bad as it was, this was the best he could offer right now.

“Don’t  _ want  _ Uncle Ten,” Chenle pouted. “Want  _ baba.”  _

Kun sighed. He went through this with Chenle every morning. It never got easier. He wanted to give Chenle the entire world on a silver platter. He wanted to spend every waking moment that he could looking after the child, playing with him, watching him grow. But he couldn’t. He needed to finish his degree, and he needed to work his stupid job in the psychology department offices  _ after  _ that because otherwise, he couldn’t afford room and board. He couldn’t risk losing all of that and losing Chenle on top of it. He just wouldn’t let it happen. So he did what he had to. 

“Today’s Friday, Lele,” Kun explained. “So when baba’s done with work today, he comes right home and Lele gets  _ all weekend  _ with him, okay? Just a few hours and I’m right home.” He cringed when he remembered his promise to Ten. “Well, Uncle Doie’s going to watch Paw Patrol with you for a little while. And  _ then  _ Lele gets baba all to himself.”

He was thankful that he had the friends that he did. They made sure that Chenle  _ never  _ went unsupervised for too long. Unfortunately, half an hour to an hour was an occasional buffer zone. But Chenle was  _ usually  _ sleeping during that time, and Kun had  _ masterfully  _ baby-proofed his dorm, so it wasn’t normally a problem. It made it so that Kun essentially had two other people helping him parent--or at the very least, he had two very competent babysitters. If it weren’t for them, this recklessly optimistic decision would have fallen through within its first weeks. And he couldn’t have done that to Chenle. He just had to keep assuring the child that this was temporary.

But temporary didn’t mean easy. 

“Go back to sleep, Chenle,” Kun said, petting the toddler’s hair with a fond, but sad smile. “When you wake up again, Uncle Ten will be here, and you’ll have snacks, and everything will be okay.”

Chenle huffed. The child was stubborn. It was something of an unavoidable family gene. Kun couldn’t blame him for it. It was his own stubbornness that had brought Chenle into his home in the first place. Kun opened his mouth to speak, but his phone started to buzz, an alarm that reminded him that if he didn’t leave his dorm  _ right now  _ that he would be late for class (again), which he couldn’t afford because another tardy would impact his grade. 

“I gotta go, Lele,” Kun frowned, pressing another quick kiss to his forehead. “Sleep, okay?” he said as he started to rush out the door. 

Chenle mumbled something Kun couldn’t hear. As he was about to close the door to head out, he watched the toddler curl himself back into the bedsheets. His tiny body was hidden in the mountain of blankets, and Kun’s heart melted. 

None of this was easy. But all of it was worth it. 

* * *

“Is there a Chenle that goes here?” Johnny asked staring down at the same page in his textbook that he had been staring at for the last twenty minutes. He  _ swore  _ one of these days he was going to understand biological anthropology, but that day was  _ not  _ today, and he couldn’t be bothered to try and memorize the differences between Chimpanzees and Bonobos. 

Taeyong and Yuta were sitting across from him at their unassigned-assigned table in the library. Though they had no actual claim to the spot, it had been decidedly  _ theirs  _ since their Freshman year and they always felt a particular sting of betrayal whenever they saw somebody else sitting there. 

“Maybe a freshman?” Yuta suggested, tapping the end of his pencil angrily against his paper as he tried to sort out an equation. 

“There’s only like, a hundred freshmen this year, and I’m pretty sure they’re  _ all  _ in the foundations of literature lecture I TA,” Taeyong said, closing his anthology with a pout. “I haven’t heard of a Chenle yet. Why?”

“No reason,” Johnny hummed as he flipped the page despite not having absorbed any of what he had supposedly just read. 

“This doesn’t have to do with Kun, does it?” Taeyong asked. 

“Of course not,” Johnny lied. 

“You’re obsessed with him,” Yuta said, looking up from his workbook to give Johnny an accusatory glare. “If you think he’s so cute, ask him for coffee or something. He’s a nice guy, he’d probably say yes.”

“It’s not like that,” Johnny said. “I don’t wanna  _ date  _ the guy. I just wanna know what the fuck he does with all that  _ food. _ ”

“I told you he’s still on this,” Taeyong said, looking to Yuta with an expression of pure exasperation. 

“I think he has a boyfriend,” Johnny explained as he pulled his pencil case out of his backpack so he could start highlighting notes and give himself the illusion that he had been somewhat productive during this study session. “I heard him on the phone the other day. He called someone named Chenle ‘baby’ and told him to stop crying because he was coming back with dinner. If that’s his boyfriend, that doesn’t sound healthy.”

“Why do you care?” Yuta asked. “He’s not your friend. What does it matter to you what kind of relationship he’s in?”

Johnny opened his mouth to protest and then shut it again. It  _ didn’t  _ matter. He  _ didn’t  _ care. He  _ wasn’t  _ Kun’s friend. He was just bored. He was bored and needed something--maybe  _ someone  _ to keep his mind occupied. And Kun was the university’s local mystery. Johnny had never been anything  _ near  _ a good detective, but it just seemed strange to him that at a university where everyone was constantly in each other’s business that no one seemed to have  _ any  _ answers when it came to Kun Qian. Or at the very least, that if they did, they weren’t talking. 

“I don’t care,” Johnny said finally as he looked back down at his notes. “But we’re still going out tonight, right?”

* * *

“I hate you, you know that?” Kun said as he sipped at the hard cider Ten had talked him into buying. Ten had  _ wanted  _ him to buy a harder drink, but that had been a fight Ten knew better than to try and argue for too long. The fact that Kun had gotten  _ anything  _ vaguely alcoholic was still a win for him. 

Kun had never been much of a partier. He  _ especially  _ stopped being a partier once Chenle came into his life. So the loud boom of music in the bar was too much for him on a good day. Today, when he was still carrying the guilt of a pouting toddler in his chest, it was all but unbearable. 

“Stop,” Ten scolded, smacking his friend’s arm. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” he said, though he knew the answer. 

“Thinking about Chenle--who’s fine--and not living in the moment.”

Kun sighed. He supposed he had never been very good at that. Ten was right. If he wasn’t with Chenle, he was thinking about him. Or rather, he was  _ worrying  _ about him. He’d had the “what if I’m doing this all wrong” conversation with Ten a million times and he knew his friend would just get frustrated with him if he started it up again. He was only twenty years old. He didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t know how to raise a toddler. 

But he knew that Chenle was bright, fiercely independent, and  _ funny.  _ He could see the child he would grow to be and it made his heart swell with pride. He got to be a part of that. He had thrown so much away when he agreed to take Chenle. But whenever the baby smiled at him, every worry, fear, or even  _ inkling  _ of regret he felt melted away. He was glad he had done what he did because it meant he got to be a part of Chenle’s life. The only thing he regretted about any of this affair was that he couldn’t do  _ more  _ for his child.

Ten and Kun passed some time talking about nothing of consequence. Classes, professors that were driving them up the wall, gossip that was circulating the campus (the Sicheng guy that was in Ten’s scriptwriting class was apparently getting cozy with a freshman, Jungwoo or something. Ten  _ swore  _ he saw Sicheng sexting him during class one time, but Kun took this with a grain of salt because Ten’s eyesight was getting worse by the day and he had a flair for the dramatic). 

But in the middle of their conversation, just when Ten was getting to the part of the story he deemed the most exciting, his eyes lit up as he looked a bit away from them and Kun knew he was  _ doomed.  _

“Oh, this is too good.”

Kun followed Ten’s eyes towards the front door and had to hold back an outward groan. “You’ve  _ got  _ to be kidding me,” he sighed. He turned back to his friend and jabbed his finger into his chest. “You planned this! This is part of your ‘hook up with Johnny’ agenda!”

Ten just shook his head as he smiled. “Oh, baby, I couldn’t have planned this if I  _ tried.  _ This is  _ fate. _ ” 

Kun, for his part, wanted to smack that smug smirk off of his face as he waved the group of students over. Johnny, Yuta, and Taeyong were wandering toward the bar. When Taeyong spotted Ten, the boy lit up and he nearly sprang himself in the direction of his quasi-partner. Kun knew his night was over at this point. He loved his friend more than anything in the world, but he was about to be  _ hopelessly  _ absorbed in his new favorite twink for the rest of the night. Kun would forgive him for it  _ this  _ time since they were still new and technically unofficial. But it did put him in a bit of an awkward position. 

Luckily for him, Yuta had never figured out the true meaning of the word  _ awkward  _ and dove into a conversation with Kun about the ridiculousness of their friends for inviting them out and then abandoning them to be with each other. That made Kun laugh. The three abandoned friends fell into easy talk for a while after that mostly at the expense of the friends who couldn’t even be bothered to remember their existence.

After what felt like three hours of conversation, but was probably only one, Kun sighed and turned to Johnny because he could see from the way that Taeyong and Ten seemed permanently attached by the lips that he had lost his best friend for the night. 

“I really hate to do this, but would you mind giving me a ride back to campus?” he asked. “Ten was my ride, but I have a feeling the two of them aren’t going anywhere any time soon. I’ve got to be back in,” he checked his watch, “Twenty minutes.”

“Oddly specific,” Johnny said with a raised eyebrow, though he didn’t seem annoyed by the statement, merely curious. 

“I have someone waiting for me,” Kun explained. 

“Chenle, right?”

Kun froze. Johnny said that so casually. Like they had talked about Chenle a hundred times before. Not like he had just uttered the name of Kun Qian’s biggest secret. 

“Where did you hear that name?” Kun asked, immediately on guard. 

Johnny knew he had said something wrong by the way Kun’s body language changed. He wasn’t leaning into the conversation anymore. He had gotten stiff, defensive, ready to fight. 

Johnny winced. “Sorry, I just heard you say it on the phone once. Didn’t know I hit a nerve.”

It didn’t make Kun feel any better. In fact, it made his stomach churn. He needed to be more careful. People outside of his carefully selected circle could  _ not  _ know who Chenle was. More people knowing meant a higher risk that he would lose Chenle and that was  _ not  _ an option. 

“Who is he?” Johnny asked, not realizing that he had punctured Kun’s entire fabric of existence. “Protective boyfriend?”

“What? No,” Kun said before he could think better of it. Maybe he should have just agreed. Then Johnny would stop asking questions, and if Johnny thought he had a boyfriend then Ten would stop trying to get the two of them together. “He’s my little brother,” Kun decided. “He’s visiting.”

“Oh,” Johnny said with a little smile. “That’s nice. It must be good to see your family some more.” 

“Yeah, it is,” Kun replied. “Doyoung’s looking after him for a little while, but it’s just because he’s avoiding his orgo exam next week.”

“I’m never more glad to be in anthropology than I am when literally anyone around me says anything related to organic chemistry,” Johnny laughed. 

Kun relaxed, if just for a moment. Talking to Johnny was easy--he had forgotten that in the two years since they had shared a class together. He didn’t have to keep himself on guard. He could just talk about classes or the fact that their friends were too horny for their own good (Kun assured Johnny that yes, Ten  _ did  _ have real, actual feelings for Taeyong and Kun would not rest until the two of them went on a proper date). 

And now that Johnny knew about Chenle’s existence, even in the vaguest sense, it meant that Kun could do something he never got to: talk about his son with someone who had never met him. And  _ that  _ felt better than Kun could explain. Talking about Chenle--even if it was in a guarded, quasi-pretend sort of way--felt like he had just opened a shaken-up soda bottle. He could tell Johnny abstract things about him--that Chenle was a picky eater due in part to his  _ very  _ strong opinions, that he was a little menace but had a good heart, that he had a hundred million questions at any given moment, and told bad knock-knock jokes. That Kun loved him.  _ God  _ did Kun love him. 

Kun hadn’t realized how starved he had been to talk about Chenle until he had been given the opportunity. It made him pause for a moment, and Johnny seemed to notice that Kun had zoned because he was soon asking if everything was alright. 

“Yeah,” Kun replied with a smile. “I just don’t usually get to talk about him much. But uh, you just about ready to go?”

* * *

“That traffic on the main road was a  _ nightmare,”  _ Johnny groaned as they walked through the halls of Kun’s building. Kun had insisted that Johnny  _ didn’t  _ need to walk him to his door. He had  _ one  _ cider and was perfectly fine, thank you very much. Johnny wouldn’t hear it, though, saying it was polite (and he was avoiding his flashcards anyway). “Sorry I got you home a little later than you wanted.”

“That’s alright,” he said when they got to Kun’s door. “It meant I got to ask you about that paper on Batman and deontology, I’d been curious since freshman year.”

Johnny laughed. Kun liked hearing Johnny laugh, he found. He had a light presence about him--like he would give a warm hug to anybody he spoke to. Kun knew he shouldn’t be letting Johnny get too close--especially since he knew about the vague idea of Chenle. But it was so easy to fall into comfortable familiarity with the senior. So easy that he could, for a moment, forget that they could never be friends.

“All I’m saying is that,  _ morally,  _ Batman should kill the Joker.”

“Batman’s no Jason Todd,” Kun hummed with a smile. 

That seemed to take Johnny for a loop. His eyes went wide for a moment before he burst into laughter. “You’re damn right he isn’t. Anyway, I  _ guess  _ I’d better actually get back to studying. I’ll see you later?”

Kun nodded in response. “Bye Johnny. And thanks again,” he said with a smile, trying to urge the other man away when there was a particularly loud peal of childlike laughter. 

Kun froze in his spot as his heart ran a marathon. Johnny blinked in wonder as he looked from the door to Kun, and back. 

“Kun,” he said lowly, patiently, as if he was trying to parse out what he was about to say. “I don’t mean to alarm you. But there is a small child in your dorm.”

“No there isn’t,” Kun said automatically. And because the universe hated him, Chenle let out a particularly loud screech that Kun  _ knew  _ came from the tickle-monster game Doyoung was so fond of playing with him. He’d really have to talk to him about that one. Too much evidence of a child in the dorm too often would raise questions from people that he  _ didn’t  _ feel like answering. Kun was glad that he had gotten relatively lucky in the child temperament department, but it wasn’t something he felt like testing.

“Yes, there is,” Johnny said. And then after a moment, “You didn’t tell me your brother was so young. I would have gotten you home sooner if I’d known.”

Kun immediately relaxed. Right. Brother. He’d told Johnny that Chenle was his little brother. And that he was visiting. He had just never actually mentioned this supposed brother’s  _ age _ . 

“Oh, no, that’s fine. Like I said, Doyoung’s been watching him, so it’s no big deal. Seriously though, thanks for the ride.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Johnny said, waving the situation away in dismissal with his hand. “G’night, Kun.”

“Night, Johnny,” he said with a smile before going into his dorm. 

Johnny was about to walk away but paused for a moment when he heard the child all but shout in joy. It made him smile a bit, to think that this small child was so excited to see his older brother again. He could hear Kun shushing him, and Johnny imagined the scene in his head. He imagined Kun picking the child up and giving him a little squeeze, peppering his face with kisses judging from the abundant giggles he heard behind the door. 

And then the child laughed, “Baba!”

Johnny furrowed his eyebrows. He did not know Chinese. Or Mandarin. Or anything other than English and the very basic Korean he had picked up from his mom’s dramas. So he didn’t  _ really  _ know what ‘baba’ meant. 

But he was pretty sure it didn’t mean ‘brother’. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Andante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And you know...it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you and Johnny--”
> 
> “Doyoung,” Kun warned for the second time that night.
> 
> “Were friends,” Doyoung finished. 
> 
> Kun reflects on what he has and what he will someday give up. Johnny and Taeyong have a friendly debate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of the love on this story! I promise within the coming chapters we'll start getting into...actual plot fdhdfdsfi whoops. 
> 
> But feel free to leave your thoughts, I love to read them!

Kun chuckled as he held Chenle in his arms. Immediately he felt an overwhelming sense of _thank God._ He loved Ten, he loved his friends. And yeah, if he were forced to admit it, the few hours off campus had done him some good. He had even enjoyed talking to Johnny for a little while. But nothing in the world beats spending his free time with Chenle. He would always be thrilled to come back home to him. Doyoung was still sitting on the ground where he had been playing with the toddler.

“How’s orgo?” Kun teased as he moved to sit on his bed with Chenle. He knew that as much Doyoung might claim he would use the time to study, Chenle was always his excuse to do _literally anything but._

Doyoung groaned and flopped onto his back on the floor. “Organic chemistry can suck my--”

“ _Doyoung,”_ Kun warned, giving a pointed glance to the child in his arms.

“-- _Lollipop,_ ” Doyoung finished as he looked at Chenle. “Organic chemistry is very, very stinky.”

Chenle gave a little giggle at the discussion of things being stinky but quickly busied himself with the stuffed animal that was sitting on Kun’s bed (it was a little dinosaur, his name was Stringbean, and he was Chenle’s current favorite thing in the world).

“Where’s Ten?” Doyoung questioned as he started to pack up his things. He had, evidently, _tried_ to study for his exam, judging by the notebooks and highlighters surrounding him.

Kun was actually glad that Doyoung had opted to take a break, even if it was only for a few hours. He knew Doyoung would berate himself later for not getting as much done as he wanted. He would teasingly blame Chenle and children’s TV for the reason that he would fail his next exam. Doyoung wouldn’t fail. He never failed his exams. He would spend the next few hours looking over his notes again and making careful flashcards. He would spend up until he got the results back in a vague sense of panic. And then he would get a B+. In any other class, this would infuriate Doyoung. In organic chemistry, it would mean he was top of the class, and he’d be alright with that.

“We ran into Taeyong and his friends at the bar,” Kun explained.

“Say no more,” Doyoung replied, shaking his head. “Wait, how’d you get back then?”

“Johnny gave me a ride, actually.”

Doyoung gave Kun a look that made Kun want to take Stringbean and throw it at his face. Ten and Doyoung were Kun’s best friends in the world. Which meant he told them _everything._ Chenle was the biggest example of his levels of trust in his friends.

He had never regretted telling them anything more than he regretted admitting to his small, inconsequential crush on Johnny during his freshman year of college. No matter how many times he insisted that he was _long_ over it, that his chest didn’t flutter anymore when he saw the guy in the halls, or with his head bent over a book in the library (and his heart _definitely_ didn’t break during the fall of the previous year, when he had heard the confirmation that Johnny was hooking up with Taeil, who was older, and smarter, and prettier and didn’t have something hefty that kept him out of relationships), his friends didn’t listen. Especially once Taeil graduated and started dating Yuta.

“We just talked,” Kun said. “About...nothing. It doesn’t even matter.”

“I’m glad you had fun,” Doyoung said. He walked over to the bed and gave Chenle a couple of kisses on the head, which made the toddler giggle as he came out of play with Stringbean. “And you know...it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you and Johnny--”

“ _Doyoung,”_ Kun warned for the second time that night.

“Were _friends,”_ Doyoung finished. “If Ten and Taeyong really are going to start dating for real, we’re going to be hanging out with him a lot. Ten and I are awesome, but it’s okay for you to have more friends. But anyway. If I don’t start actually studying the guilt’s gonna set in and I can’t let that happen. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“For sure,” Kun nodded.

Doyoung was right. As usual. He knew he couldn’t spend until Johnny’s graduation avoiding him--not that he even _wanted_ to, necessarily. It would just be easier. He liked the way things were. Kun liked routine. He had a schedule and he stuck carefully to it. When he had to diverge from it in any way it caused panic to rise in his chest. That had only increased tenfold once Chenle came into his life. Routine was important. Routine showed Chenle that everything was going to be alright. It helped the toddler slowly start to understand the world he’s living in.

Kun looked down at Chenle. He wondered if the swell of emotion he felt every time he laid eyes on the child would ever stop. He hoped not. He hoped he’d still feel like the luckiest parent in the world when Chenle was in his twenties. He couldn’t imagine Chenle in his twenties, he didn’t want to. He wanted his son to stay this small, and wide-eyed, and curious, and _happy._ He wanted to always be able to wrap him up in his arms and dress him in pastels and overalls. Kun had spent his teenage years cringing when his mother still tried to wipe food off of his face or told him how _handsome_ he looked.

But he understood it now. He understood that as long as Chenle grew up, he would always be something like this--the toddler playing with an increasingly dirty stuffed dino and smiling at Kun like he was the greatest thing in the entire world.

“How was your day, Lele?” Kun asked as he tickled the toddler’s tummy. “Did Uncle Doie play nice while Baba was away?”

Chenle giggled and scooted away from Kun’s touch, smacking his hands away, but he nodded. “Uncle Doie played cars! He kept crashing!”

“Well isn’t he _silly,”_ Kun laughed. “Did you eat?”

Chenle nodded. “Uncle Doie brought chicken nuggets! They looked like Stringbean!”

Kun reminded himself to buy Doyoung a _very_ nice present for Christmas. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Kun figured he could buy his friend that would be equal to all of the incredible things Doyoung had done for him this year. But he could try. He had to. He loved that his friends loved his son as much as he did (as much as Ten used to complain about Chenle spitting up on his “nice shirts”).

“I get Baba all weekend now, right?” Chenle asked, looking up at Kun with wide eyes and a bright smile.

Technically, Kun had a research report due on Tuesday. And a paper due Friday on the Stanford Prison Experiment. And he was supposed to read about a hundred pages of his textbook. And he needed to continue trying to find schools for Chenle because he couldn’t spend the rest of his life cooped up in these walls. If Kun thought too much about it he could feel his chest start to get too tight and his head started to swim with all of the things he was _supposed_ to be doing.

But when Chenle looked at him like that, who was Kun to say no to a few hours of cuddling and cartoons?

After all, Chenle wouldn’t be small forever.

* * *

“‘Bout time you decided to roll back home,” Johnny mused from his bed the next afternoon as Taeyong finally wandered back into their dorm room.

“Yeah, yeah,” Taeyong dismissed as he plopped himself onto his bed. It had been a long time since Johnny had been surprised by the state of his roommate when he returned from his _escapades_ with Ten. But that didn’t mean Johnny would _ever_ stop teasing him for it. And while Taeyong had been doing who only _knew_ what since this morning, Johnny had been reading about the evolution of hip joints. So he was pretty sure Taeyong deserved it as he hopped out of bed to sit down next to him and start poking at the bruises on his neck.

“Man, he really makes you his chew toy, huh? You should start taking him out to dinner first so you stop being his meal,” Johnny teased.

“Oh fuck off,” Taeyong said, smacking his hand away. “You’re just jealous because you haven’t gotten any in _months._ ”

“How dare you,” Johnny chastised, poking at one of the larger bruises where Taeyong’s neck met his shoulder. “I’m focusing on my _academics._ I’ll have you know I’m near a breakthrough in human evolution.”

“Oh do tell,” Taeyong insisted as he shifted away from his roommate.

“Alright, so get this,” Johnny said, sitting back and holding his hands up like he was going to gesticulate through his epiphany. “Animals--and people--have _always_ been gay. Scientists are just assholes.”

Taeyong rolled his eyes and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Brilliant observation, Dr. John, thank you _so_ much for your insight. What would biological anthropology and human evolution do without you?”

“It’d be a dying field, let me tell you that much,” Johnny replied as he got off of Taeyong’s bed to return to his own and the _cursed_ reading he didn’t ever want to go back to. But he did have a degree to get, so he would do his stupid reading to know what stupid hip joints looked like in early primates.

After a few minutes of silence, Taeyong let out a particularly loud snort that made Johnny look up from his textbook. “Oh what _now?”_

“Nothing, it’s nothing,” Taeyong said, though he was still chuckling. “It’s just--”

“Ten?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Come on, lay it on me. You have to save me from this textbook and cursing the fact that I ever heard the name Linnaeus.”

“Well, it’s just,” Taeyong shook his head with a little smile. “It’s ridiculous. Ten keeps asking if I’d let Kun join us--not like, in a polyamorous way, just for a night--and I keep telling him Kun would _never_ agree to that. And he keeps coming up with outlandish ways he’s going to convince his friend to sleep with us.”

“You can’t sleep with Kun,” Johnny said before he thought better of it.

Taeyong raised his eyebrows as he looked over to his friend. “And why not?”

“Because--” Johnny pursed his lips as he tried to think of a reason that made actual sense and didn’t make him sound vaguely like a dumbass. “Because it’s _Kun.”_

“Mhm,” Taeyong hummed as he squinted as his roommate. “And I can’t sleep with him because you’ve had a crush on him for years and have been trying to pretend you don’t ever since.”

“I do _not_ have a crush on Kun,” Johnny insisted.

“Oh _please,”_ Taeyong groaned.

“We’re not having this argument again,” Johnny said, shaking his head as he finally returned to his textbook and the world of early primates. “Don’t you have a close reading due Monday?”

That elicited a loud groan from Taeyong, who had evidently _just_ remembered that yes, he _did,_ in fact _,_ have a close reading due.

“Why do we even still teach _As I Lay Dying_ ?” Taeyong asked. “I’m not doing it, I’m protesting against my professor and the entire institution that would label this a literary masterpiece and worthwhile read and anything _but_ incoherent nonsense and babbling.” Though while he spoke, he still reached into his backpack and pulled out his copy of the book and opened his laptop. “ _My mom’s a fish, but Daryll’s my brother, and his mom’s a horse--_ shut _up_ Faulkner,” he grumbled.

Johnny didn’t do much reading that wasn’t related to his field these days. He just didn’t have the time. So for a while, he’d thought about picking up literature as a minor so he could give his mind a break and read novels and poetry for a change. But the more he listened to Taeyong ramble about whatever nonsense he was reading, the happier he was that he hadn’t. He wasn’t sure how long he would have been able to pretend he was suffering through those books. He knew for a fact that many people faked it.

Taeyong never did. He read everything assigned, even if he spent the entire time gritting his teeth. It was something Johnny had always admired about his roommate. He hadn’t been able to stomach a lot of the reading he had to do for his classes until it was time for him to take the exam. He always _tried._ But more often than not, he skimmed the vague idea and slammed the book shut after an hour.

Johnny knew he had to get better about that. He wasn’t a _bad_ student, per se. He was getting by with low As in most of his classes, a couple of Bs in the particularly difficult ones. And it had done him just fine up until this point. But a few failing exam grades showed him that this wasn’t going to fly much longer. And with graduate school applications due within the next few months, he knew that he needed to start pulling himself together lest he ruin his chances.

He didn’t really know what he wanted to do with his future. He knew he was going to get his masters because it was what his parents had told him was best for him, and they were paying the bills. But whenever a well-meaning person found out Johnny was a senior and asked what his postgrad plans were, all he wanted to do was put his hands over his ears and scream. Because Johnny loved his field. He loved learning the history of how humans became humans. He liked the summer he had spent at a zoo in an internship working with lemurs. But did he want to do that forever? Did he want to go on digs and try to find the missing pieces of humanity? He had no idea. When people asked these days, he joked that his ultimate goal was to move to Madagascar and try to convince lemurs that he was one of them.

Nobody liked that answer. They wanted a serious one, and he didn’t have it. He was supposed to have it all figured out by now. He tried not to think about it too much because otherwise he got a headache. He supposed he didn’t have to _just_ yet. He had the rest of this year. And then he had the two to three years of his masters.

He could afford to put it all off a little longer


	4. Fermata

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn’t often that Kun went out to an actual grocery store--they didn’t have that much money to spare, and he did have a meal plan. But it was nice to take Chenle off campus for a little while.
> 
> He also didn't plan on running into anybody while there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of the love on this fic! The next chapter might be a little late because of the upcoming holiday, but I'll do my best! Please feel free to comment or share thoughts on my twitter (@goldennmakbae)!

“Chocolate! Milk!” Chenle whined from his seat in the grocery cart.

Kun sighed. It wasn’t often that Kun went out to an actual grocery store--they didn’t have that much money to spare, and he _did_ have a meal plan--but one, it was nice to take Chenle off campus for a little while. He was planning on taking him to the nearby park so that he could be on the playground and hopefully get much of his pent-up energy out. And two, though Chenle was delightfully open-minded when it came to food, he still had a few creature comforts that he demanded regularly. He usually tried to make sure at least one of his friends was with them when they did this, however.

Because Kun was a pushover. And he was still learning how to look Chenle in the eye and say “no”. He knew it was something he would have to master at some point. But the way he figured it, he could afford to spoil his son at least while they were in this unfortunate situation. Once Chenle was in school, and _especially_ once they were done living in the dorms, Chenle could start being a normal, completely unspoiled child.

But until then, who was Kun to deny him what he wanted?

“What’s the magic word, Lele?” Kun asked as he wheeled the cart back into the aisle with the chocolate milk boxes that had become the toddler’s favorite.

“ _Please?”_ he asked, his eyes appropriately wide and begging in the way that never failed to make Kun weak in the knees. He could practically _hear_ Ten rolling his eyes and telling him that Chenle is a smart boy who knows _full well_ how to act in order to get what he wants. Kun should not be falling into the carefully-set trap. But he couldn’t help himself. He just wanted to make his son happy, and he didn’t think that was a crime. When he caught sight of the grocery bags later, Ten _would_ wag his finger at him later, and then Kun would remind him who Chenle’s parent is, and everything would settle again.

“Atta boy,” Kun smiled as he placed a couple of the boxes in.

Chenle, at least, was only a _mild_ nightmare in the supermarket. He really _had_ won the lottery in the child behavior area. Chenle was, when he wasn’t having the tiny meltdowns typical for a child his age, _extremely_ well behaved. And as much as Kun would love to brag and make wild claims that it was all because of his excellent parenting, he knew that the truth of the matter was that most of it simply had to do with his personality. Kun couldn’t help but feel slightly smug as he pushed his cart through and noted that other children were having full-blown tantrums while Chenle was sitting happily in his seat and singing his A-B-C’s quietly to himself. All in all, it was one of the more successful trips that the pair had ever made.

Which is how he should have known that it was going to all fall to pieces soon enough.

“Kun!” he heard Johnny’s familiar voice call.

Kun froze, his hands gripping white-knuckled at the bar on his shopping cart. No. _No,_ no no. This couldn’t happen. Johnny could be vaguely aware of Chenle as a concept. He could know the child’s name and a little bit about what he was like. But he couldn’t _meet_ Chenle. He couldn’t know him too well because if he heard Chenle’s voice too often then he might realize that the toddler was around the dorms more often than was technically allowed. It was just too big a risk.

But Johnny had seen him. He was waving, and he was smiling in the way that made his dimples show up (god _damn_ it, that’s not _fair_ ) and there was no way Kun could run without it looking extremely rude. And wish as he might, he couldn’t bring it within himself to do that. So instead he turned around and offered Johnny the brightest smile that he could muster.

“Johnny! Hey! Didn’t think I’d see you of all people here.” Kun said, standing as in front of Chenle as he could without making it look like he was hiding something (which he absolutely was) that he didn’t want Johnny to see (which he absolutely didn’t). He hoped his tone sounded chipper and friendly and not as nervously panicked as he felt.

Johnny shrugged with a chuckle as he came up to the shopping cart. “Taeyong thinks he’s coming down with a cold, so he sent me out to--oh hold on, who’s this?”

Chenle, during this time, was starting to get cranky and had begun to tug on Kun’s shirt in the hopes that they might move along. Chenle liked routine, and they were deviating. He was a well-behaved kid, but even the best toddlers could only be pushed so far. When Johnny addressed him, though, the child stopped and beamed up at him. “I’m Chenle! I’m two!”

The smile Johnny gave Chenle after that made Kun want to melt into the ground. For a moment, he forgot every worry he had about what might happen if Johnny got too close. Instead, he could watch Johnny’s starlight eyes grow wide as he looked at his son. Johnny looked at Chenle as if he was the most adorable thing he had ever seen in the world. Which in theory wasn’t so unusual. Chenle was, Kun loved to brag, a _very_ cute child. He had chubby cheeks, wide eyes, and a kind smile. He had a loud, high-pitched laugh that made everyone around him want to laugh too. He was a _great_ kid. But there was something about _Johnny_ looking at his son with that expression that made Kun’s heart flip in a way that he knew was dangerous.

“So _you’re_ the Chenle I’ve heard so much about,” Johnny said, lowering himself to Chenle’s height so that they could have a proper conversation. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Kun didn’t tell me what a little munchkin you are,” he smiled. “Do you mind if I give your hair a little ruffle?”

Chenle nodded enthusiastically. The boy was very physical. In short: he was a clinger. If he could be touching you in any capacity, he would be. So any form of affection that involved physical touch made him happiest. He let out a twinkling giggle when Johnny reached out to play with his hair.

Kun, for his part, was looking at Johnny with his own expression of amazement. Johnny didn’t know it--he probably didn’t even think about it twice. But he had just done one of the most impressive things he could have. He asked _Chenle’s_ permission to touch him. Most people didn’t offer that courtesy. Nine times out of ten, people played with his hair or pinched his cheek without asking him simply because he was a cute kid. Or if they did ask, they asked _Kun’s_ permission as his guardian. That had always bugged him--not because he was worried Chenle wouldn’t want to be touched, but because he felt that his son should have the right to choose on his own.

Johnny gave Chenle agency over his situation. He talked to him like he would talk to anyone else. People had no idea how far something like that went. Johnny, with one sentence, had given Kun one of the greatest gifts that he could have asked for. God _damn_ him.

Kun had to admit (at least to himself--he would never say it out loud) that Johnny looked _good_ playing with Chenle. He was a natural. He didn’t seem to mind having his large frame bent over, and he nodded during all the right points in the conversation so that the toddler knew that he was _listening_ and not just placating him. Whether or not he was genuinely interested in the talk aside, he _appeared_ like he was, which made a world of difference.

“So what’s your favorite color, Chenle?” Johnny asked as he settled his elbows on the shopping cart.

“String-Green!” Chenle laughed.

“I don’t think I know that one” Johnny asked, a bit confused and aware, from the way Chenle immediately looked at Kun and started pulling his shirt, that he had missed out on some sort of joke.

Kun laughed and had to interject. “Stringbean’s his brontosaurus,” he explained. “And he says his favorite color is ‘green like Stringbean’. So it’s String-green for short,” he smiled. “Did you bring him, Lele? You can show Johnny.”

At that, Chenle quickly pulled out the stuffed animal from where he had placed it behind his back (he had been playing hide and seek with the dino while they had been in the cereal aisle, which was one of Chenle’s favorite forms of amusement where Kun pretended not to know where the toy was hiding) and held it out to Johnny in order to show the older man his most prized possession.

Johnny grinned widely and let out an appropriately amazed “Woah!” before he asked, “Can I hold him for a second? I promise to give him right back.”

Chenle seemed reluctant for a second. Johnny could never have known, but to be able to hold Stringbean was a high honor. Kun got to hold the dino, because he was his dad. Doyoung got to hold Stringbean because he was the best at playing. Ten, however, was deemed too rough with the toy and was decidedly _not_ allowed to touch him. This was a particular point of bragging rights for Doyoung. Chenle ultimately nodded and passed Johnny the toy.

To his credit, Johnny held Stringbean like he was the most incredible and fragile thing in the universe. And if Chenle needed any convincing this was the action that told him that he liked Johnny. He was treating his most prized possession with the care that it deserved. Chenle was mostly trusting of the few strangers he encountered, but very few of them ever got to _touch_ Stringbean, and most times Chenle would ultimately decide they hadn’t _done_ it right, take the toy back, and say they couldn’t have him anymore.

“I think he’s awesome, Chenle,” Johnny assured as he looked the dino over before passing it back to the child gingerly. “And he’s very lucky to have a friend like you taking care of him.”

“I tuck him in _every_ night,” Chenle told Johnny with a serious tone and a nod that let Johnny know that he meant business. If there was one thing Chenle took seriously, it was the care and keeping of his best friend in the world. And if Kun thought about that too much, it made his heart ache because Chenle deserved to have so many more friends than just one stuffed dinosaur. It was just going to take a _little_ longer to get him into school.

“That’s good,” Johnny nodded. “We wouldn’t want him getting cold, after all,” Johnny replied with an equally serious tone that let Chenle know that he wasn’t joking around. If it was something that mattered to him, then it mattered to Johnny too. That in itself was a skill that not many other people had--at least not off the bat. It was often something that had to be learned after some time interacting with a child. But they wanted to be spoken to like anybody else, and Johnny had _mastered_ it.

 _Stop, Kun,_ he warned himself as he watched Chenle explain very seriously to his friend exactly what Stringbean’s morning routine was. _So he’s good with kids. So what? Plenty of people are good with kids. You can’t do this to yourself. You can’t do this to Johnny. You can’t do this to_ Chenle, _you know how attached he gets. If you let them spend too much time together and then take Johnny from him, Chenle will never forgive you. You can’t let this happen. You need to stop it now. You need to tell him--_

“Ah, I’ve kept you two here too long,” Johnny chuckled as he stepped back from the cart. “I just meant to say hi and now I think we’ve been here for ages,” he said, offering Kun an apologetic smile. “Your parents must work a lot of they keep you taking care of your brother.”

Kun looked confused for half a moment before he remembered the story he had told Johnny about why Chenle was around. “Oh! Yeah, they’re like, really busy. And I don’t mind. I love Chenle a lot. I’m happy to spend time with him.” He mentally beat himself up for not having something stronger put together for his false narrative. He really needed to work on that if it was going to be believable.

“I can’t blame you. He’s a great kid.” He smiled back at the toddler and gave him a little wave. “Bye-bye, Chenle! It was nice to meet you.”

“Bye-bye!” Chenle smiled, waving his little hand frantically in front of himself.

“I’ll see you Monday?” Johnny asked as he turned back to Kun.

Johnny, technically, had no _reason_ to see Kun Monday except perhaps in passing. But Kun nodded anyway as if this was something they did all the time. “Yeah, of course, see you.”

Kun watched Johnny walk away and smiled a bit as Kun noticed that he lowered himself a bit to wave to Chenle properly. He wasn’t sure if it was ridiculous to think that Johnny’s eyes were sparkling under the gross fluorescents of the grocery store. It probably was. When he turned the corner down an aisle, Kun let out a deep sigh. This was a problem. A big problem. But not one to deal with right now. Future Kun could worry about how his chest felt like he had just run a marathon. He’d save that for the nights when he stayed awake staring at the ceiling.

Chenle looked down at his toy and then up at Kun. “I like Johnny,” he said with a resolute nod.

Kun chuckled breathlessly and started their way back through the supermarket. “Yeah. I think I do too.”

* * *

“Ew, you look too happy, get out,” Taeyong grumbled, throwing a pillow at Johnny from where he was perched in a blanket nest surrounded by used tissues and collections of poetry.

“Guess you _don’t_ want the myriad of cold medicines I picked up for you, huh?” Johnny said as he set the shopping bags down by the door and took Taeyong’s pillow hostage. This, of course, immediately made Taeyong whine and stick out grabby hands so he could have the pillow back. Johnny rolled his eyes and tossed the pillow back his way. He went back into the shopping bags to sift through the supplies he had brought back--tissues, cough drops, NyQuil, and eucalyptus patches--before he found the _very specific_ tea Taeyong had begged for and put it on his nightstand.

“Seriously though,” Taeyong said as he picked up the pillow and cuddled it close to him. “You look like sunshine just threw up on you.”

“Well maybe it’s a good thing that I’m developing a sunny disposition,” Johnny teased. “Especially seeing how you woke up with vague sniffles and now you’re going to spend the next week being a _misery._ ” It was entirely a tease, but it was no secret to either of them that Taeyong sucked at being sick. And that was an understatement. If he so much as had a minor cold, he turned into a whiny disaster. He made a bunker of their dorm room and would make Johnny all but wait on him hand and foot. And Johnny, because he was a sucker, fell into the trap of doing it every time. Not that he minded too much. It kept him busy and he liked taking care of people.

“Oh come on,” Taeyong said with an eye-roll. “Fess up, what happened. I _know_ you want to talk about it. Let’s just get that over with now.” Taeyong knew him too well, really. He knew that if he left it alone, Johnny would be vibrating until he blurted it out an hour and a half later, by which point Taeyong would have forgotten they had something they avoided discussing, and it would be a whole ordeal.

Johnny chewed on the inside of his cheek as he continued to organize the cold supplies. This was a bad situation to be in. He knew that the second he opened his mouth, Taeyong would never stop making fun of him for what he was about to say. But he would also never leave Johnny alone until he admitted to what was going on. And in theory, he could lie. But the two of them had been living together for too long. Taeyong knew all of Johnny’s tells now. If this was Yuta, he might be able to get away with it. Not a chance with Taeyong.

“I ran into Kun at the supermarket,” he said with a shrug to push the fact that it was really no big deal. Because it _wasn’t_ a big deal. Casual friends could run into each other at the supermarket and it didn’t have to be an ordeal. If it had been some random guy from one of his classes, Taeyong wouldn’t have even thought twice about it. But of course, it _had_ to be Kun, which meant--

“Oh well _that_ explains everything,” Taeyong smiled from his blanket nest. “You’re shining so brightly because you happened upon Prince Charming on your stroll through the enchanted forest,” he teased.

“Shut up or I’m holding your cough drops hostage,” Johnny absently threatened. “I met his little brother today, you know I like kids. I can’t meet a baby and _not_ make it smile, Yong, that’s not how the universe works.”

“Kun has a baby brother?” Taeyong asked.

“Yeah, turns out that’s the Chenle I heard about the other night. He’s two. He’s got squishy cheeks and a stuffed dinosaur named Stringbean,” he explained, smiling fondly at the memory of how passionate Chenle had been about him “He’s actually kinda the cutest kid I’ve ever met. Gives your giant baby eyes a run for their money,” Johnny teased again before he noticed the strange expression on Taeyong’s face. “What’s with the face?”

“Nothing, it’s just--” Taeyong hummed as he furrowed his eyebrows. “I had a class with Kun sophomore year, he said he was an only child.”

Johnny leaned against his desk and furrowed his own brows. It wasn’t technically the most absurd thing in the world, but it did seem a little strange. “Well, I mean, that was two years ago. Chenle’s two. Mighta been just before he was born.”

“I guess,” Taeyong said, though he didn’t seem to be convinced. “It’s just weird. He never mentioned it. When we talked about home life, he said it was just him and his parents. He didn’t say anything about a kid brother on the way...guess it doesn’t matter,” he said, shaking his head.

“Kun’s a private guy,” Johnny shrugged. “It just didn’t come up, so he didn’t say anything. You’d like Chenle, though. He’s got a lot of energy. He must be a handful,” he said, smiling fondly as he thought about Chenle painstakingly describing how he looked after his best friend, the dinosaur.

“You say that about every child you meet,” Taeyong countered. “You say that about random kids you see when we’re in town. There’s no such thing as a bad kid to you.”

Johnny couldn’t deny that, so he sat down at his desk and opted to get back to work instead. With midterms dangling on the horizon, Johnny felt overwhelmed more and more as the deadlines got closer. He tried not to think too much about it, but too much of that and things just got _worse_ when the exam dates actually appeared and he had only done the bare minimum. He knew it was something to be avoided. He knew he needed to change his behavior--at least for the rest of this year. He’d get there. Eventually.

For now, though, he could afford to fall under the same trappings as the other students around him--the ones who whined and complained about their dwindling timeframe while also not doing very much to change it. It was acceptable for college seniors to be in a constant state of vague mental breakdown. It was a gross norm, but it was a norm nonetheless.

Johnny could spend one more evening pretending like this was okay.

  
  



	5. Staccato

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lost does not necessarily mean alone, or so Kun tries to remind Johnny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a little late, but the holidays delayed me a bit! Feel free to comment your thoughts! I'm also open for commissions at my Twitter @goldennmakbae

“I can’t do it,” Ten said, looking down at his hands in a moment of vulnerability on the floor of Kun’s room. 

Chenle was punctuating this slightly heavy moment as only Chenle knew how to do, by driving a small toy car up Ten’s leg. If Ten even noticed, he didn’t seem to care. Instead, he moved his hand up to pet Chenle’s hair. Kun knew this was a hard moment for Ten, so he  _ couldn’t  _ chuckle at the subtle “vroom” noises Chenle was making, nor could he take a video of it. But he kind of wanted to. Just for posterity’s sake. 

“Don’t do that thing you do,” Kun said with a frown. “Taeyong  _ likes  _ you. He really, genuinely  _ likes  _ you. And you’re allowed to like him back and have something real with him.”

“He’s graduating, Kun,” Ten frowned as he pulled Chenle in his lap to act as an emotional support teddy. Chenle accepted his new role happily and giggled as he drove the toy up Ten’s arm instead. 

“So?” Kun asked. “Taeil graduated, and he and Yuta are going strong. It’s not like he’s moving to the Arctic Circle once he graduates. And even if he  _ was,  _ you could make it work--”

“You’re too optimistic,” Ten said, shaking his head. “I just feel like I had my shot and now the window’s closed. He’s getting ready to do a huge senior project, he won’t even have time for me once that starts.”

Kun sighed. He loved Ten with all of his heart. And Ten would never show most people in the world how deeply he felt things. His heart wasn’t on his sleeve, but it did bleed, no matter how much he tried to conceal it. To Ten, there would never be a scenario where he got to win. He prepared himself for the worst case scenario and didn’t consider for a second that the best case scenario was actually his closest option, no matter how much Kun might try to convince him. 

“Here’s what’s going to happen, okay?” Kun said, shifting around to get more comfortable. “The next time you and Taeyong hang out--because you  _ are  _ going to hang out again, darn it--you’re going to ask him if you can take him out for breakfast in the morning. And when he inevitably says yes, you hold his hand, and keep him close, and kiss him. You make it clear that it is a date, even  _ say  _ so if you have to. And then you’ll live happily ever after and I’ll get to make the best man’s speech at your wedding for being the one to get you two together in the first place. Everybody wins.”

“And if he says no?” Ten said. 

Kun wanted to shake his friend and ask if he had heard anything he had just said, but sighed instead. “If he says no, we sic Chenle on him,” he teased. “He’s got tiny, powerful fists and I can tell you from experience that he’s one heck of a hair-puller. I’m amazed I don’t have a bald spot.”

Chenle, after being addressed, perked up and smiled up at Ten. “I’ll hit ‘im real hard, Uncle Ten! BAM!” Chenle punched Ten’s leg to reference his own small power, and Ten recoiled appropriately. He really had gotten much better at play time since Chenle had first come around. Ten was a fast learner overall, and he had put those skills to good use when it came to the care and keeping of Kun’s child.

Ten laughed and cuddled Chenle a little closer in his arms. “What would I do without you, Lele?”

“Cry!” Chenle chimed with a laugh.

None of them could argue with that. 

Chenle had woven himself into their lives so deeply that though they had both spent most of their lives without him, the idea of not having him now seemed to be fundamentally wrong. Living like this was hard, but now that Kun came home every day to Chenle’s smiling face, he often spent his nights wondering how he had ever gotten along without him. How had he ever slept without Chenle curled up at his side? The idea of it now was unthinkable. Even Ten, who had at first pretended to be most wary of the infant that Kun had brought home, was completely wrapped around his finger. Chenle had the particular talent of making sure everyone around him wanted to gravitate closer. 

“So you’re going to do it, right?” Kun asked, giving Ten a pointed look. 

Ten took a deep breath. But he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m going to. I’m seeing him tonight. So I’ll ask then.” 

“Should I be busting out the headphones?” Kun asked, trying not to sigh in slight annoyance. Kun had realized very quickly into Taeyong and Ten’s shenanigans that he had needed to invest in some nice noise-canceling headphones not only for himself but for Chenle as well so that the both of them might not be scarred. 

“I’m actually going over there,” Ten explained. “Johnny said he’d be out until late, so I’ll spare you.”

“Thank God,” Kun sighed. “Doyoung’s coming by to watch Chenle for a while so I can go to the library. I shouldn’t be long, but you know he’s  _ way  _ less forgiving than I am.”

Ten huffed at that. “He’s just mad because he makes himself too busy to have fun. Which isn’t  _ my  _ fault, you know.”

“Uncle Doie  _ is  _ fun!” Chenle protested, bouncing himself in Ten’s lap so that he might get his attention. “He plays cars better than you.”

Ten let out a loud, offended gasp while Kun burst into hysterics. 

Ten got his revenge on the toddler, though, by tickling his tummy and making Chenle fall into a fit of giggles as he tried to wriggle away from Ten. And it was too loud. And Kun should have been worriedly telling Ten to cut it out and keep quiet. They were already risking so much and the day that Kun decided not to be too careful would be the day that everything would fall to pieces around them. 

For now, though, he could be content with watching Chenle try to wriggle away from his best friend. Chenle hated it when Kun pulled out his phone to take pictures and videos of the little moments like these. It made him get shy. Kun would tease him by saying this was important, that someday Chenle would be big and that he wouldn’t remember what it was like to be this small. And Kun would have to remind him. 

Selfishly, too, Kun liked having these videos. He couldn’t show anyone besides Ten or Doyoung--maybe now he could show Johnny--but they were nice to have. Little snippets of his son’s youth. That was nothing to squander, and he lamented that he would have to leave that evening. But his essays needed to get written so that he could get his degree and get a job so he could eventually put a  _ proper  _ roof over Chenle’s head. So he would suck it up and get it done. 

* * *

Kun was cursing the name of Sigmund Freud, as was his perpetual state when he had to do any sort of research paper for his classes. Because no matter how hard he tried, no matter how progressive any of the psychologists he was studying were, somehow,  _ inevitably,  _ he found himself back to Sigmund Fucking Freud. It didn’t help that his abnormal psychology professor was all the way up Freud’s ass and  _ loved  _ to tie everything back to him. 

So Kun was, begrudgingly, in the library searching for a book that would raise some ridiculous point that  _ he  _ didn’t believe at all, but his professor would eat up so that he could get the A in this course that he knew full well that he deserved. He was even grumbling to himself damning cocaine for being part of the reason that Freud was so bonkers in the first place when he heard what sounded like someone sniffling. He didn’t think anything of it at first--the weather was getting colder, which meant that people were catching colds. Kun figured he needed to stay the hell away from that person. He could get sick, that wouldn’t matter too much. But  _ him  _ getting sick would inevitably mean  _ Chenle  _ would get sick, and he just couldn’t afford it. So he was about to turn a corner to get the hell away. 

And then he heard a familiar voice hiss “ _ damn it.” _

It was none of his business. He knew that. If it was him having a moment like this alone in a secluded corner of the dusty library, he would want to be left alone. He should have turned around and gone back to his room so that he could start his paper with at least the materials he currently had. But there was a tugging in his chest that told him that he needed to go check. 

He turned the corner of bookcases and saw Johnny looking impossibly small, curled in on himself at one of the carrels that dotted the area. His knees were hugged to his chest and his face was buried in his arms. He was taking deep, shuddering breaths in an attempt to calm himself down. It was vulnerable. It was personal. It was  _ intensely  _ private in a way that made Kun feel guilty for being there. He was intruding. He wasn’t meant to be seeing this. He should go. But…

“Johnny?” he asked softly, stepping closer to him.

Johnny nearly fell out of his seat from being startled, quickly wiping his eyes on his sleeves and sniffing as he tried to pull himself together. Kun immediately felt guilty for interrupting him, but he couldn’t just  _ leave  _ him there when he was clearly in such a negative place. No one should be alone when they’re like that. 

“Kun--hey, sorry, I--”

“What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“No, nothing,” he said, shaking his head, “It’s nothing I just--”

Kun moved to sit down on the floor near Johnny’s feet. He didn’t want Johnny to look up at him when he was in a moment of distress. They needed to be vaguely on the same plane. He offered Johnny a small, encouraging smile. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I’m here if you need to talk, okay?”

Kun thought about what Doyoung had said, that it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if he and Johnny were friends. Maybe he was right about that. Maybe what the two of them both needed more than anything right now was another friend who would just listen to them. 

Johnny sniffed and shook his head again. “It’s stupid,” he said softly. 

“You’re upset about it,” Kun said, looking up at him. “It’s not stupid. 

“Nah, it’s ridiculous,” Johnny chuckled, though there was no actual humor in his laughter. “It’s just this assignment. I think I messed up the lab, and it’s a  _ huge  _ part of my grade and I just--” he let out a shuddering breath. “I just got overwhelmed. It’s dumb to be worried about my parents finding out about my grades like it’s high school, but I can  _ hear  _ my mom being disappointed in me, and I don’t know what I want after college and...I don’t even know why I just told you all that.”

“Because you needed to talk to  _ someone, _ ” Kun said sympathetically. “And that’s okay, you know? You can talk  _ at  _ me if you need to,” he hummed. “Just rant everything that’s wrong with the world. If you don’t want advice, I won’t give it. But it sounds like you could use an ear. And that much I  _ can  _ provide.”

So Johnny did. He sat with Kun in a secluded corner of the library for an hour and worked out his thoughts, gesticulating wildly when he got frustrated, curling a little closer when he got sad and uncertain. Kun, to his word, didn’t say a word the entire time, save the occasional sympathetic “I’m sorry” when he deemed it appropriate. 

During this hour, Kun learned something important: Johnny was deeply and fundamentally afraid. Kun knew what that felt like. It was a similar fear to the one he had felt when he made the decision to bring Chenle home with him. He couldn’t tell Johnny that he understood  _ exactly  _ how it felt to be on the brink of a decision that could make or break your entire life. He could not tell Johnny that he would only know until months after the fact whether or not it would be the right decision. 

Instead, when Johnny finished his ramble and took another breath, Kun offered him a small smile and squeezed his knee. “Feel better?”

“A little,” Johnny admitted. “I still don’t think I’d do real well at the Turkana Basin, though.”

“Then don’t go,” Kun said simply. “No one’s going to hold a gun to your head and make you be the next Darwin. Try to find the thing that makes you happy, the thing that makes you want to wake up every morning. And don’t let that go.”

“Have you found that?” Johnny asked. 

“Yeah,” Kun said. His chest fell with the knowledge that he couldn’t tell Johnny the real truth; that he was doing everything he was doing now, and everything he would ever do, was for Chenle. To keep him safe, and protected, and living comfortably. “I really want to help kids. Work in a high school. Find the ones that slipped between the cracks and help them be somebody.”

“Of course you do,” Johnny chuckled, his tone teasing but fond. “Of course you want to be a white knight for troubled youth. Save them all.”

“Someone has to,” Kun said simply with a shrug. 

“Guess they do,” Johnny mused. “Why you, though? Why not pass the job off to someone else?”

Kun had never really thought about that. Why  _ did  _ it have to be him that saved the world? Why couldn’t he do the same thing most people did--kept his head down, did what he needed to in order to get by, and be content with that?

The same reason he had brought Chenle home, probably: people need people. People need to know that they are not alone in the massive void of the universe. People need to know that kindness has not gone out of fashion, that there is still something akin to hope left for humanity. He couldn’t tell Johnny that, though. It sounded silly if he said it out loud. So instead, he just shrugged. 

“I’m already in too deep to go the other way. Might as well push forward.” Which wasn’t necessarily a lie either. He couldn’t go back now. Or, rather, he could, but it would be a lot of work. And it wasn’t like he wanted to anyway. He was perfectly content with the way things were in his life now. And even if he could change it without any repercussions, he didn’t want to. He was more than happy to shape the rest of his life in a way that made sense for his little family. 

Johnny laughed at that answer, responded with an appropriate “fair enough”, and quickly changed the topic of conversation to something lighter. By the time Kun got back to his dorm later that afternoon, he wouldn’t even be able to remember what they had talked about. None of it mattered except to divert focus away from Johnny’s fears. It didn’t matter, when it came down to it. What mattered was that Johnny was smiling again. And even if this conversation hadn’t fixed all of his problems, it had made him feel better in this moment. He’d never be able to thank Kun enough for that. 

“Hey, Kun,” Johnny asked after a while. “Can I ask you a stupid and possibly invasive question?”

“Yeah, shoot,” Kun said. 

“Why have you never dated anyone around here?”

Kun was startled by the question, and Johnny immediately began to supplement. “It’s just something that’s always been strange about you. I mean, there’s not much to do around here except date or screw around. But you never did. Why?”

“I wanted to,” Kun replied, avoiding Johnny’s gaze and hugging his own knees to his chest. “I just...ran out of time. Now I’m too busy to even  _ think  _ about trying to date anyone. I wouldn’t want to bring someone else into the...mess I’ve got going on.”

“Mess?” Johnny asked, his eyebrows furrowed. “Kun, you’re one of the most put-together people I’ve ever met.”

Kun chuckled. “It’s a wonder what facades people can put on, you know.”

“I guess,” Johnny hummed. “Would you clue me in on this mess of yours?”

“Maybe someday,” Kun lied with a smile. “For now, I really ought to get going. Sigmund Freud is calling my name and as much as I’d  _ far  _ rather sit here and talk with you, my professor really needs this paper handed in on time.”

“I feel your pain,” Johnny sighed, looking to the work he had abandoned amidst his minor breakdown. “I owe Darwin a lot, but sometimes I want to rip my hair out when I hear his name because I just feel so...oversaturated with information about him. Good luck out there.”

“Thanks,” Kun chuckled as he gathered his things. He bade Johnny farewell and was about to start making his way back to his room when Johnny called back out to him. 

“Hey! Next time you see Chenle, tell him hi from me. I miss the kid.”

Kun smiled fondly as he thought again about the way that Johnny had interacted with Chenle the last time they had met. His chest swelled. He tried to ignore that. “Yeah, alright. I will.”


	6. Crescendo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you ever regret it?” Ten asked softly.  
> “Regret what?”   
> Ten didn’t say anything in response, simply nodding up to the toddler in bed.  
> Kun immediately shook his head. “Never. Not even for a second.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait until tomorrow to post, but with the Wayv announcement, it felt right to give china line a little love a day early. Let's go Kun stans!
> 
> We're more than halfway there now! I hope you're still enjoying the story. Feel free to comments your thoughts, or leave them in my curiouscat at curiouscat.me/goldennmakbae

“Do you ever regret it?” Ten asked softly as he sat next to Kun on the floor of his dorm room while Chenle napped in the bed. 

“Regret what?” Kun asked as he typed away at his laptop. Somehow every clack of the keys seemed to boom when the toddler was napping. But he also knew that as difficult as it could be to get Chenle down for a nap, once he was asleep, he could probably sleep through a hurricane. It was a blessing and a curse, because it meant that Kun could do work around the room without fear of waking his child, but it also meant that it was near  _ impossible  _ to wake him up when he needed to be. 

Ten didn’t say anything in response, simply nodding up to the toddler in bed. 

Kun immediately shook his head. “Never. Not even for a second.”

He was eighteen years old when his girlfriend at the time, his first  _ real  _ relationship and high school sweetheart, Yuyan, had told him that she was pregnant. They had thought they had done everything right. They had no idea what they were going to do. But after several long discussions with each other and their parents, they decided that they were going to co-parent the child together. Neither of their parents liked the idea, Kun’s most of all, but they couldn’t bear to do anything else. 

Kun’s parents had been pushing their son to convince Yuyan to give the baby up for adoption. They were to young to be parents. They didn’t know what they were doing. By the time his girlfriend was six months pregnant, the couple wasn’t even  _ together  _ anymore, but were civil. At the time, they both wanted to be a part of their son’s life. 

Chenle was born prematurely a month later in an emergency due to Yuyan falling ill. Small, but healthy, and absolutely beautiful. Things were fine for about two months. Kun was in his freshman year of college, making friends and doing everything he could to support his child and ex in his spare time. Yuyan was taking college classes online while in recovery. 

Kun woke up in the middle of the night to a panicked phone call. Yunyan couldn’t do it. She couldn’t handle being a parent so young. It had impacted her mental and physical health, and Chenle didn’t deserve to have his childhood negatively impacted because of her own mistakes. Her parents had stopped helping her out and she felt completely on her own. She wanted to put Chenle up for adoption to give him the chance at a better life. 

Kun couldn’t bear that. He had absolutely fallen in love with his son since even before his birth, and the idea of sending him away, even if it was selfish, was something he absolutely could not reconcile. After a lot of convincing, Kun convinced Yuyan to let him take Chenle under his care. She could have as much or as little involvement in the child’s life as she wanted. And Kun wouldn’t judge or blame her either way. 

So Kun drove out to her, took all of Chenle’s things, and brought him back to his dorm where they had been ever since. When Kun dropped the news to his parents, they exploded. They refused to help in any capacity. He still had hope that they would come around someday, when Chenle was older, and see why he had to make the reckless decision that he had. They had never met their grandson. Kun was convinced they would love him someday. 

Yuyan was well, and made time to see Chenle, who called her Mama, even though she was no longer an active participant in his life. Kun didn’t resent her for it. She wasn’t ready. He couldn’t blame her for that. The important thing was that Chenle was happy and healthy. 

“You’re doing a great job, you know,” Ten said, giving Kun a little nudge. “He’s the best kid in the world.”

“You’re saying that because you dislike all other kids.”

“I’m  _ trying  _ to compliment you.”

“Fine, fine.”

“Baba?” a sleepy voice murmured from up in the bed. 

Kun immediately moved to attend to his waking toddler, helping him wipe the sleep away from his eyes and offering him a kind smile. “Morning sleepy head,” Kun said softly. “Good nap?”

“Mhm,” Chenle agreed with a nod. Wordlessly, he reached out to Kun with grabby hands, making the young man chuckle as he pulled the toddler into his arms and moved to sit back down on the floor with him in his lap. Chenle tended to take some time waking up. He eased into his usual state of awakeness slowly and with some effort. But Kun drank in every second of this part of the day. Sleepy Chenle, with a tired smile on his face and gentle giggles as he nuzzled his face in Kun’s chest. He’d eventually wake up more, run around the room and laugh and give Kun a run for his money. Until then, though, he could enjoy this moment of something that he knew would be in the handful of things he would miss most once Chenle was bigger and deemed himself too old and cool for physical affection from his father. 

“How was your date, by the way?” Kun asked as he traced little patterns into Chenle’s back. 

Ten beamed, melting a little at the memory. “It was great. You were right, he--”

“Sorry, I’m going to need to hear you say that one more time,” Kun said smugly. 

“What?”

“‘You were right’,” he mocked. 

Ten rolled his eyes. This was when he would give Kun a nudge if he didn’t have a half-awake toddler in his lap. “You were right,” he teased. “It went great, he was really glad I asked. We’re like, a thing now, I guess.”

“About damn time,” Kun sighed with a smile. 

“ _ Speaking  _ of the people who live in that dorm,” Ten smiled mischievously. “You’ve been hanging out with Johnny more lately. How’s  _ that _ ?”

Kun opened his mouth to retort, but Chenle smiled and beat him to the punch. “I like Johnny,” he said, perking up a little bit. “He likes Stringbean.”

Ten’s eyes went wide as he looked to Kun with a look of astonishment and slight fear. “He knows about Chenle?”

Kun winced. “Kind of. He...thinks he’s my little brother.”

Ten sighed and shook his head. “Oh Kun...how long’s  _ that  _ going to last?”

“I know,” Kun frowned. “He met him. I ran into him at the supermarket. Ten...he’s so  _ good  _ with Lele, it’s not fair. Chenle let him hold Stringbean and everything.”

Ten gasped in genuine offense. “You let Johnny hold Stringbean and not  _ me? _ ” he asked the toddler. “After everything I’ve done for you! Johnny’s a stinky face, how could you?”

Chenle giggled against Kun’s chest before falling into a friendly argument with Ten over why Johnny was _ far  _ more fit to care for the dinosaur than Ten was. 

* * *

Johnny wasn’t usually the type so show up somewhere unannounced. He knew it was rude, and he didn’t like to do that to people. But he didn’t actually think he had Kun’s number saved. Granted, he could have told Taeyong to ask Ten for Kun’s number. But that felt inappropriate somehow. It didn’t sit right with him to have his best friend and roommate ask his boyfriend for  _ his  _ best friend’s number. Because then Ten might ask  _ why.  _

And the reason being “well I was wasting time in a Target because I didn’t want to go back to campus and type up a lab report. And while I was there I found a dinosaur onesie that looked like it was about Chenle’s size. And I’m fiscally irresponsible, and before I knew it I was driving home with them” felt too embarrassing to share. 

What felt even  _ more  _ embarrassing was standing outside of Kun’s door with a bag containing a toddler-sized dinosaur onesie. And he figured if he had any sense, he should turn around right then and there and go back to his dorm before he mortified himself even more. He was sure he still had the receipt. He could go back to Target tomorrow and return the stupid thing and make some excuse about how it hadn’t fit his nephew. Kids do grow  _ so  _ quickly, after all, you never realize until you’re trying to get them dressed--

Johnny took a deep breath and knocked on the door. He had no idea why he was so goddamn nervous. What was he doing that he should be so anxious about? This was fine, it was normal. He was just dropping off pajamas for his friend’s little brother. Which, he realized, could  _ absolutely  _ be perceived in some weird way. And if Kun thought it was weird, he would just bring the thing back, but he had just been bored and he thought Chenle might like them and--

Kun looked nervous when he answered the door. He hardly opened it as he squeezed through the smallest possible crack and stepped outside, closing the door behind him. That made Johnny furrow his eyebrows in confusion. If he didn’t know any better, he might think that Kun was hiding something. And it was only then that he realized that he had never actually seen the inside of Kun’s room. The last time he had been here, he had entered his dorm in much the same fashion. Maybe it was just messy and that made him embarrassed, but Kun didn’t strike Johnny as the kind of guy to keep a mess…

“Johnny! What a surprise!” Kun said. “What’s up?”

“I just--” Johnny said, looking down at the bag in his hands and then back up at Kun. He suddenly wanted the ground to swallow him whole as he felt like the stupidest person to exist. “I saw this, and it reminded me of Chenle, and I thought he might like them.”

Kun visibly relaxed and melted as he took the bag from Johnny. “Oh, Johnny,” Kun sighed with a small smile as he looked at the onesie in the bag. “It’s adorable, Chenle’s going to  _ love  _ this. We’re never going to be able to get him out of it,” he chuckled. 

Johnny flushed. This still felt like an embarrassing action, like he had been stepping over some sort of boundary even though Kun had made it clear that there was nothing wrong with what had happened there. “I hope it fits. If not I kept the receipt, you can bring it back, get him a bigger one. Or like, anything he wants, I guess, if he doesn’t like it.”

Kun shook his head, beaming from ear to ear. “He’ll love it. And it looks like it should fit just fine. Actually…” Kun looked to the door behind him, and then back to Johnny as if he was trying to make some sort of hefty decision. “He’s over again right now. Do you want to give it to him?”

Johnny was both surprised and unsurprised that Chenle happened to be over. It seemed a bit strange, given that it was a weekday afternoon and he should probably be in school, or at least with his parents. But it also seemed to be that Chenle was  _ always  _ with Kun for one reason or another. Which simply added to the mystery that was evolving in Johnny’s head. Just when he thought he was getting to know Kun better, something else happened that made Johnny realize he knew absolutely nothing about the young man. He would ask about it all someday, but now didn’t seem like the right time. 

For now, he just wanted to see Chenle in that silly little onesie. 

“Really? Sure, I’ve got time,” Johnny agreed. Taeyong was technically waiting on him, but he could afford to wait a little longer. His roommate needed a lesson in patience anyway. 

“Great!” Kun chimed as he let Johnny into his room. “Chenle!” he called out. “Look who came to visit.”

Kun’s room was a strange thing. It looked mostly how Johnny had expected it to--clean, a desk piled with notes and walls plastered with post-its to help him study. What he hadn’t expected was the sheer volume of supplies kept for the care and keeping of a toddler. Toys, stuffed animals, a bin of plasticware and sippy cups. It was clear to Johnny in that moment just why Kun never really brought people over. And it was clearer that Chenle spent more time in this dorm than Kun had ever let on. 

“Johnny!” Chenle grinned from where he had been sat on the floor with Stringbean. He quickly stood up and ran his way, barreling himself into Johnny’s legs as he hugged them. It nearly knocked Johnny over, but he didn’t mind. Instead, he just laughed and ruffled Chenle’s hair. 

“Hey there, kiddo. Good to see you again.”

“Johnny brought a present for you,” Kun explained. 

“Present!” Chenle said excitedly. “Gimme! Gimme!”

“Magic word, Lele,” Kun gently chided.

“Please?” he pouted.

With eyes that wide, Johnny wondered how Kun ever said the word ‘no’ to him. He took the bag from Kun and revealed the little onesie he had bought for Chenle. The way the toddler’s eyes lit up made Johnny feel like the most important person that had ever existed. “So you and Stringbean can be matching,” Johnny explained. 

“What do you say, Lele?” Kun asked. 

“Thank you!” he said as he snatched the pajamas from Johnny with a shocking amount of force for someone so small. “Can I put it on, Baba?  _ Please?”  _

“Yes you can,” Kun said. “Let Baba help, okay?” he said as he moved over to him.

“I can  _ do  _ it!” Chenle argued. 

Kun sighed and stepped back as he watched the toddler try to struggle with his clothes a bit. Johnny couldn’t help but feel like he was intruding on something intensely private. He didn’t feel like he was meant to see this. It felt too personal, somehow. Like he had walked in on someone else’s home movies. 

“I have to let him try,” Kun said softly as he glanced over at Johnny while he watched Chenle try to undo the buttons on his overalls. “He can get it sometimes. But he has to learn independence his own way. Stubborn as a bull, but he knows when to admit defeat.”

Chenle was almost at the point where he could handle buttons and zippers, but he still couldn’t quite get them. So after a few moments of intense focus on the part of the toddler, Chenle huffed and flopped down onto his butt on the floor and pouted up at Chenle. “Baba. Help please,” he said, clearly a bit upset with himself. 

Kun smiled fondly and went over to the child to help him finish dressing. “You’re so close, Lele. You did really good.”

The praise made Chenle beam up at Kun and once again Johnny felt like he was an intruder. He walked over to where the pair were and sat down on the floor next to Chenle. It was dawning on Johnny that something was going on here that he was not privy to. There were pieces of information that he was missing. And he felt like he was close to the answer, but that it was also just out of reach. 

When Chenle was finally dressed, he ran over to the mirror that hung on Kun’s wall so that he could get a look at himself. “I love it!” he declared with a wide smile. He quickly ran back over to Johnny and launched himself into the man’s lap, which earned a chiding “Chenle!” from Kun. Johnny didn’t mind, though, he simply laughed and wrapped his arms around Chenle as the toddler giggled. And this time, instead of feeling like an outsider to whatever it was that Kun and Chenle experienced...Johnny felt like an intrinsic part of it. 

He had to admit, he liked that feeling. He liked the warmness that washed over him when he noticed the soft expression on Kun’s face as he looked at the two of them. He wanted to keep being a part of that. And he felt like the wind had been knocked out of his chest when he heard Kun’s gentle laugh. 

He had a crush on Kun Qian. One that wasn’t about to go away any time soon. This was probably a problem. But he knew that there was no going back now. He wanted to be a part of Kun’s life in a new way. He wanted to spend more of his time just like this--talking with Kun and making him laugh while Chenle sat in his lap in something ridiculous that Johnny had bought because it might make him smile. 

His expression must have betrayed that there was something on his mind, because Kun’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked over to Johnny. “What’s wrong?” he asked. 

Johnny shook his head, getting himself out of his thoughts as he pulled up the hood on Chenle’s onesie to put a little dinosaur head on him. Chenle squealed in excitement and hopped out of Johnny’s lap to grab Stringbean and bring him to the mirror to show the toy that they were matching now. 

“Nah, nothing,” Johnny said as he watched Chenle. “Everything’s great.”


	7. Dolce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re pathetic,” Taeyong said as he sat cross-legged on his bed.   
>  Johnny shot Taeyong a glare. “We can’t all be in really great relationships, you know. I haven’t dated since...freshman year? I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be...romantic.”  
>  “Oh now that’s a laugh,” Yuta said.
> 
> Or, Johnny picks himself up by the bootstraps and Kun reminds himself that he is allowed to be happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The warmth and love this fic gets makes me so happy, I'm glad you're all enjoying it! I hope you continue to love it as it draws to a close <3

“You’re pathetic,” Taeyong said as he sat cross-legged on his bed. Yuta and Taeil had commandeered Johnny’s bed, leaving the other male to pace back and forth around the room in a vain attempt to combat his anxiety. 

Johnny shot Taeyong a glare. “We can’t all be in really great relationships, you know. I haven’t dated since...freshman year? I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be...romantic.”

“Oh now  _ that’s  _ a laugh,” Yuta said. He was laying on the bed, his head resting on Taeil’s chest while the older played with his hair. “You’re a  _ hopeless  _ romantic. Just do whatever romcom cliche scenario is playing in your head right now. Kun’s bound to fall head over heels for it. Boom. Problem solved.”

“I can’t overwhelm him like that,” Johnny said, shaking his head. Because Yuta was right, Johnny was a romantic at heart. And he was inclined towards grand gestures. But he couldn’t show up to Kun’s with flowers and something for Chenle. Not for a first date, anyway. If they ever got past that stage, he might consider that a bit more deeply. 

For now he had to think of something a bit more subtle than that. Which was proving more difficult than he originally thought. Part of the problem was that just when he would psych himself up to send the risky text message he had been drafting and erasing, he would convince himself that Kun would laugh at the idea and turn him down. Taeyong had gotten tired of watching Johnny spend the afternoon in distress, so he had called in the calvary. 

“Just call him,” Taeyong said. 

“I can’t  _ call  _ him,” Johnny said as if Taeyong had just told him to join the circus. “Nobody  _ calls  _ anybody anymore. He’ll think I’m a weirdo.”

“Kun prefers phone calls, he thinks they’re more personal and intimate,” Taeyong explained while he scrolled through his phone. “He’d be impressed. Take him to the cafe and get him the cinnamon dolce.”

Johnny’s jaw dropped as he looked over to his roommate. “How...do you know all of this?”

Taeyong smirked as he looked back up at Johnny. “I may have done some recon with Ten. Asked him what to do if you really wanted to impress Kun. He was  _ more  _ than happy to give me all the details. Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.”

“Yong, I could  _ kiss  _ you,” Johnny said as he made a note of Kun’s preferred coffee order in his phone so that he wouldn’t forget.

“Please don’t,” Taeyong said, scrunching up his face in disgust. “One, Ten’s possessive. Two, you had too much garlic bread at lunch.”

“I take it back, you’re the worst,” Johnny frowned as he pulled up Kun’s contact on his phone. All he had to do was call him. And yet...something seemed so final about pressing the call button. It felt like too large a risk even though he of all people knew that the worst thing that could happen would be that Kun would say no.

In that moment, that felt like a monumental failure. 

“Oh my god, just call him,” Taeil said, shifting himself to sit up and causing Yuta to whine and rest his head in his lap instead. 

“Alright, alright, I’m calling, shut up,” Johnny said and pressed “call” as he threw caution to the wind. Johnny’s friends finally kept their mouths shut and listened eagerly to Johnny’s side of the conversation.

Johnny was certain that Kun could hear his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest when he answered the phone. “Johnny!” he chimed in a tone that made the other certain that he could hear him smiling. “This is a surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?” his voice was almost teasing, but Johnny could tell that he was actually happy to receive the call, which made him relax a little bit. 

“I was wondering if you’re free tomorrow afternoon?” Johnny asked. “I thought...maybe we could go to the cafe? My treat?” He winced as he hoped Kun got the hint. Asking “do you want to go on a date with me?” felt so old fashioned, and while he thought Kun might actually  _ like  _ that, he didn’t want to risk sounding dumb. 

Luckily for him, it didn’t seem that he had to. “I think I can pencil you in,” he teased. “Two pm? I’ll meet you there?”

“Great,” Johnny said with a smile. He offered his friends a thumbs-up to show that he had gotten the date. Taeil clamped his hand on Yuta’s mouth to keep him from cheering out loud. Johnny was already embarrassed enough that Taeyong had to call in a team just to get him to ask Kun out, he didn’t need Kun  _ knowing  _ this fact to embarrass him further. “I’ll see you then.”

“Definitely,” Kun agreed. “Oh! Wait, before you go,” he said, apparently shuffling around due to the muffled sounds that Johnny could hear from his end. “Lele, say hi to Johnny.”

“Johnny!” the tiny voice of Chenle said on the other side of the phone. “Hi Johnny!”

“Hi Chenle,” Johnny said, melting a little bit as he imagined the toddler. He didn’t know what it was about Chenle that made him feel a certain layer of “I need to keep this child safe”, but it was something he couldn’t ignore. He had feelings for Kun. Real, romantic feelings. And Chenle was clearly a huge part of Kun’s life. Therefore, Johnny was going to have to make room in his life for Chenle too. 

In truth, Johnny didn’t mind that one bit. 

**********************

Kun tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest as he sat down in the cafe the next day and waited for Johnny to arrive. He’d had to get Ten to emergency babysit Chenle--to which Ten eagerly agreed once it was revealed  _ why  _ he needed the babysitter--but only after a long argument where Kun suggested he might call Johnny back to cancel his date and Ten reminded him of what Kun had said to him when he was getting ready to ask Taeyong out. 

_ He likes you. He really, genuinely likes you. And you’re allowed to like him back and have something real with him. _

It had shut Kun up fairly quickly, but it didn’t make him less nervous. Because his situation was different from Ten’s. Ten didn’t have a child attached to his hip, something that fundamentally made relationships just slightly more complicated. Most people his age didn’t want to be parents. The idea of having children was something for  _ someday  _ for most of his peers--not right now. But dating Kun meant taking Chenle into your life. And most weren’t ready for that level of responsibility and domesticity. 

But Kun was. Kun wanted to settle down. He wanted to find the person who would be with him and help him raise his child. Being a single parent was starting to get exhausting. He wasn’t sure if Johnny was it--the person who would end up his forever--but the thought was exciting when he wasn’t convincing himself that he shouldn’t be letting Johnny this close at all. He knew this wasn’t dangerous. Johnny loved Chenle. Even if this didn’t work out, Johnny wasn’t the type who would rat him out in an act of revenge.

But the possibility was still there, real, and scary.

That fear melted away for a moment when Kun looked up from his phone to see Johnny walking towards him with two coffees. 

“Cinnamon dolce?” he asked as he placed the latte in front of him and sat down at the table.

“How’d you know?” Kun asked, taking the cup in his hands and letting the warmth keep him grounded. 

Johnny simply shrugged and offered him a smile. “I have my ways,” he said. His tone wasn’t cocky, but he was grinning from ear to ear, clearly pleased he had gotten it right. Kun never needed  _ more  _ reasons to be endeared with Johnny. And yet, the other kept providing him with them. 

“What’s your order?” Kun asked with a nod over to the coffee that Johnny had begun to nurse. This elicited a gentle blush to rise to Johnny’s cheeks. 

“Oh...it’s a mocha. It reminds me of a hot chocolate. It was how I got into coffee, so it’s nostalgic, I guess,” he said with a small shrug. 

“Cute,” Kun smiled, feeling a bit bold. 

Johnny blushed an even deeper shade of red and avoided Kun’s gaze. That amused him greatly. He liked knowing that he could bring Johnny to the point of embarrassment like this. He wondered how many people before him had ever called Johnny cute. He speculated that it was nowhere near enough. 

“I have to admit,” Kun said, taking a sip of his coffee so that he might collect his thoughts before he spoke again. “I’m...pleasantly surprised you asked me out.” He had been sitting with Chenle in his room trying to get a  _ little  _ bit of his homework done when he had gotten the call. He had thought that there might have been some flirtations going on with Johnny, but had never anticipated the other would actually  _ do  _ something about it. 

“And here I thought I was pretty obvious,” Johnny chuckled. “Yong said I wouldn’t know subtle if it hit me in the face.”

Kun couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I had...inklings,” he admitted. “But…” he had to figure out how to word his next thought carefully. “When people see how close Chenle and I am...they usually run. People don’t like feeling like they have to compete with him for my attention.” It was only a half-lie. Kun had tried to date exactly once since Chenle came into his life, a slightly older guy he had found on a dating app. And that had been the exact issue. While Kun had been transparent about his raising a child, the other man had decided Kun was  _ too  _ invested in the life of his son. He anticipated that anyone around his own age would react much the same way.

Johnny, however, shook his head. 

“I think it’s great, honestly. It’s refreshing to see someone who like, gives a shit, you know? Like right now it’s really ‘trendy’ to hate kids and be disinterested in everything. So seeing you actively love children and caring? It’s…” Johnny smiled over at him. “It’s kind of beautiful, actually.”

Kun looked down at his hands with an embarrassed smile. “Chenle adores you, you know. He asks about you all the time. I think you’ve beat out Doyoung for the role of his best friend.”

Johnny seemed to preen at that knowledge. He sat up a little straighter and smiled a little brighter. Kun had never met someone so intent on making friends with a toddler before, but he was glad that out of anyone it could have been, it was Johnny. “That’s high praise, and I’m honored. He’s really a good kid.” He seemed to pause for a moment before he continued speaking. “Can I ask another personal question?”

Kun nodded as he tried to hide the panic that was rising in his chest. “Yeah, of course, go for it.”

“It’s just…” Johnny fiddled with his cup as he looked over to Kun. “I feel like lately, every time I’ve seen you or talked to you...Chenle’s been there. I know you said your parents work a lot...but it seems unfair for them to saddle you with basically raising your brother when you’re busy too. What’s the deal with that?”

Kun didn’t really know how to answer that question in a way that was honest and also made sense. Chenle had become a carefully fabricated lie in the relationship between himself and Johnny, and that was all starting to fall apart. He knew he couldn’t keep it up much longer. But he was going to keep it up for today. 

“Ah...I don’t mind, really. Chenle...wasn’t exactly planned. We’re all doing the best we can. He’s with me more often than he isn’t. But I’m happy to do it. That kid’s my whole world.” It was as close to the truth as Kun could give without revealing the entirety of it. But it was truth nonetheless, and Johnny seemed to understand that. 

“I can tell,” Johnny replied. “And Chenle adores you. I can see it when he looks at you. You’re his hero.”

Kun melted. God damn Johnny Seo and how he always seemed to know exactly the right thing to say. “I hope so,” Kun admitted. “Sometimes I feel like I’m doing this whole thing wrong and that I’m screwing him up.”

“No way,” Johnny said, shaking his head. “I’ve never met a better kid. He’s going to grow up amazing. And you’re a big part of that. I’d consider that a win on your part.”

“Keep talking like that, and you’re going to make me want to kiss you, John,” he teased gently, though he meant every word. The more Johnny praised the way he was raising Chenle, the more he talked about what a good kid he was, the more Kun wanted to wrap him up in his arms and never let him go. Which was a disastrous train of thought, but he figured he was already in too deep to do anything about it. 

“Good, my plan’s working, then,” Johnny teased in return as he leaned a bit over the table with a smirk on his face. His hair was starting to fall a bit into his eyes and it made Kun’s breath hitch in his chest. He couldn’t help himself. He reached across the table to brush some of it away. The touch made Johnny shiver a bit, showing that his cocky was just a facade. That made Kun feel a little better. He wasn’t the only one erring on the side of flustered. 

He leaned across the table, closing the distance between their faces. He held himself a fraction of a space in front of Johnny’s lips, allowing his breath to ghost over his skin as his hand came to cup Johnny’s cheek. Kun had missed this. He had missed the pure electricity he felt when he was with someone he had real feelings for. Johnny’s lips were soft and plush against his own, delightfully pliant but also endearingly cautious. They were only kissing for a second--more of a peck than an earnest kiss. But it was enough. It was  _ more  _ than enough. 

Kun smiled as he sat back in his seat. He could feel his cheeks heating up but he couldn’t be bothered to care much. This felt like a victory not only for the him of the present, but for the version of him that had been a wide-eyed freshman completely in awe of the too-cool older student who leaned back in his chair and talked about comic books with the professor with ease. Never mind the fact that Johnny was only a year older, and the only reason he could talk to the professor so casually was because he had taught a class Johnny had apparently taken the previous semester. When Kun was fresh out of high school, and Johnny was six foot ridiculous, the other had seemed completely unattainable. 

And here he was now, with Johnny somehow looking impossibly small as he giggled into his coffee. Johnny was here, on a date with  _ him,  _ and he knew about Chenle in an abstract sense, and he seemed to love his son. And either everything was about to completely fall apart, or the universe had decided to finally do Kun a solid. He really hoped it was the latter. He couldn’t afford another disappointment. 

The date passed along much as it had started, with the two of them talking with ease about anything and everything, ranging from their classes, to their idiot best friends turned boyfriends, to the way the current barista seemed to be making eyes at one of the patrons. 

For a moment, Kun cursed himself for not doing this sooner. Perhaps he should have followed his own advice and listened to Ten and Doyoung when they said that spending more time with Johnny would be a good thing. But Kun was an expert in self-preservation. And the idea of sacrificing the well-built world he had made was too much to bear. 

It seemed, however, that Johnny might just be worth the risk. 

Johnny insisted on walking Kun back to his dorm, not bothering to listen to his complaints that it was a silly thing to do. It was only the early evening, and still light out, and it wasn’t like they lived on an especially dangerous campus anyway. Secretly, though, Kun was thankful for the excuse to spend just a little more time with him. He thought about inviting Johnny into his dorm to hang out and see Chenle. But he decided, ultimately, that this moment was just for the two of them.

Kun shared just about everything in his life with Chenle. And that didn’t bother him one bit. He was happy to make space in every aspect of his life for his son to fit into. In fact, nothing made him feel more joy. But just for today, he was going to be a little selfish. For this afternoon, Johnny was just  _ his.  _ Kun hadn’t anything that belonged only to him since he had become a parent. There was no such thing. 

So when Johnny stood in front of his dorm and pulled him in by the waist and held him for a  _ real _ kiss, Kun couldn’t help but smile. He’d share Johnny with Chenle eventually. He’d gladly make space in their little world for the kind man that was holding him. But he would be lying if he said that he wasn’t having a bit of enjoyment in a child-free afternoon. Maybe Ten was right, maybe he had needed something like this for longer than he had ever cared to admit. 

Maybe he’d needed Johnny all along. 


	8. Pianissimo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny was, admittedly, no Sherlock Holmes. But in the month since he had first met Chenle, he had picked up on a few details.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the love this fic has gotten. It's your comments on every chapter that kept me writing. Know that every word means more than I can say!

Johnny was, admittedly, no Sherlock Holmes. But in the month since he had first met Chenle, he had picked up on a few details. 

One. Any given moment that Johnny decided to show up at Kun’s dorm, Chenle was there. It didn’t matter the day of the week or the time of day. Invariably, there would be an excited toddler running up to him to hug his legs and attempt to rope him into playing dinosaurs or cars (Johnny always did, even though he told himself every time that he was just going to say hello to Kun and leave). 

Two. Kun was tired. He could cover up dark circles with concealer, but he couldn’t hide the way his shoulders sagged when he thought Johnny wasn’t looking. There was no concealer for the way that he would zone out sometimes, apparently having fallen asleep with his eyes open. 

Three. Kun was a master in aversion. He did not talk about his parents. He changed the subject when they were brought up. If Johnny asked when Chenle was going to go back with them, Kun didn’t answer. He made excuses when Johnny asked why he wouldn’t go out to bars or do much drinking. 

Four. There was something big holding Kun back from truly committing himself to Johnny. It wasn’t like they weren’t enjoying themselves--they were. They went on dates, they held hands, they kissed. After some time, Kun even allowed himself to do those things in front of Chenle if Johnny happened to be in his dorm (which always elicited teasing from the toddler). But there seemed to be a level of restraint in Kun. Johnny couldn’t explain it. But Kun would pull himself away from kisses too soon, or not let Johnny hold him. And at first, it made Johnny insecure about his place in their budding relationship. It made him concerned that Kun didn’t actually like him as much as he had thought. 

But he later realized that all of the above were because of detail number five. The thing that had made Kun the enigma of the university that Johnny had been fascinated by for years. The reason he smuggled so much food from the dining hall but never seemed to eat it. The reason he isolated himself from most of his peers except a select few. The reason he never seemed to go out or allow himself much in the way of fun. 

Five. 

“Chenle isn’t your brother, is he?” Johnny asked quietly as he sat next to Kun in his own dorm. Johnny had insisted they go to his place rather than Kun’s, which had made Kun nervous, as always. Kun preferred to be in his own dorm. He explained it away as being a creature of habit who liked to be in his own environment. 

The fact that Chenle was always there was, Kun would have said, a complete coincidence. 

Kun sighed and rested his head on Johnny’s shoulder. He had known this moment would come eventually. And sooner rather than later. Johnny wasn’t stupid. He was bound to figure it out. But he had hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. He had hoped he would have been able to tell Johnny himself. But if this was how it was going to go, then so be it. 

“No,” Kun said. “He isn’t.”

“He’s your son. You’re raising him on your own.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Kun closed his eyes. He didn’t want to fight with Johnny. He hated confrontation more than anything in the world. But he had a right to have this conversation. “I didn’t want you to feel like you were signing yourself up to raise him with me. I have to be a parent. You don’t have to. And...it’s a risk. If administration finds out Chenle’s living in my dorm...they could make him leave. I could lose my housing. And then we’re both homeless. The less people that know, the easier the damage control.”

“Doyoung and Ten know,” Johnny observed. “Does Taeyong?”

Kun shook his head. “Ten knows not to tell anyone. We’ll…” Kun chewed on the inside of his cheek. “If this...if  _ us  _ is really a thing you want? We’ll tell Taeyong eventually. He’s going to spend a lot of time around us...he should know. But right now...you’re one of the three people in the world who know.”

Johnny pressed a soft kiss to Kun’s lips. He couldn’t imagine how lonely that must have been, two years of not allowing himself to get close to anyone so that he might protect his son. Kun had made so many sacrifices to keep Chenle safe. And Johnny admired him all the more for it. 

“You know I love him too, don’t you?” Johnny asked softly. 

Kun smiled softly. “I can’t ask you to be a dad at twenty two, Johnny. You don’t have to decide that for yourself right now. We haven’t even been...us for a long time. You can’t decide that this is what you want.”

“But I’m here for now,” Johnny said. “And as long as I’m here...Chenle’s a huge part of your life. So let me be a part of Chenle’s life too.”

And maybe Johnny  _ was  _ making a decision that was more risky and involved than he knew. He could only  _ hear  _ the things his own parents would say if he told them that he was dating someone with a child of their own. Their comments about how Johnny was still just a kid himself, that he had a  _ career  _ to think of had boomed loud in his head when he couldn’t sleep. 

He didn’t care. Johnny had spent so much time this semester in a vague sense of misery because nothing about his future was what he really wanted. When people with good intentions asked Johnny Seo what he was going to do after college, he never really had an answer. This was starting to become increasingly a problem as the deadlines for graduate school applications drew closer. It made him feel like he was suffocating when he reminded himself of it. 

When he looked at Kun...when he looked at him and Chenle...things made sense. Johnny had never really believed in soulmates or anything like that. Maybe it was too soon to really say how this would go. And yet, Johnny had the overwhelming sense that it wouldn’t matter what he was doing after college as long as Kun and Chenle were a part of that future. 

Kun nodded. “Okay,” he agreed finally. “Just don’t be afraid to back out if you don’t think you can do it. Don’t feel pressured to stay for his sake, you know?”

Johnny pressed a kiss to Kun’s temple. “Have you considered the possibility that I  _ want  _ to stay, Kun Qian?”

“Never,” Kun admitted. “I never thought it was an option.”

“Well get used to it,” Johnny teased, pulling the smaller man to straddle in his lap with a chuckle.

Kun was happy to adjust to this position, wrapping his arms around Johnny’s neck and resting their foreheads together. He hadn’t been this close to someone since before Chenle was born. He had missed it more deeply than he originally thought. It felt scandalous, somehow. Like he was doing something he shouldn’t be. He knew that was ridiculous--he was an adult, Chenle wasn’t around. In theory, he could do whatever he wanted...and Johnny being so close  _ did  _ feel promising…

“You’re so beautiful,” Johnny said softly. 

Kun flushed. “You’re gonna kill me, you know that? How does it feel to be responsible for my death? You’re going to make Chenle an orphan, how dare you.” It felt freeing to be able to admit to the truth. He could finally,  _ finally  _ speak completely freely with Johnny. There was no fear for what would happen if he found out. Johnny knew. And he was still here, tracing his hands down Kun’s sides and kissing down his jaw. 

He figured he could get pretty used to this. 

* * *

Health and safety checks were technically important. He knew that. He knew that it was his RA’s job to come around and make sure there was nothing in his dorm that would burn the place down or that he didn’t have enough alcohol to kill him or anyone else. 

But they also meant that a stranger would be in his dorm soon. And if they found any evidence of Chenle there, all would be lost. The worst part of it all was that the students were never told  _ when  _ the RAs would be coming around--just that they would be there at some point during the week. Which meant he had no way of knowing when to hide his things and get Chenle out. Which, of course, was exactly the point of health and safety checks. 

But that meant Kun was pacing back and forth in his room, Chenle following because he thought it was a game. His whole crew was sitting in there now--with the recent addition of Taeyong, who had been entrusted with the full truth out of necessity. Taeyong, for his part, promised to keep it a secret on the teasing stipulation that he could play with Chenle every once in a while. Kun, of course, had no problem with this. More babysitters meant more work he could get done out of the dorm. 

“Kun, you’re going to wear a circle into the carpet,” Ten chastised. 

“I don’t know what to do!” Kun said, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. “I can’t just be gone all the time on the off chance they’ll come around while we’re out. And what am I going to do about all of his things? I can’t risk them finding them, I--”

“They’re not allowed to open your closets,” Johnny explained as he scooped Chenle up from behind Kun and sat down with him on the floor, giving his tummy a little tickle and causing him to explode with laughter. “And they say they’ll come any time during the week, but it’s always Tuesdays. So it’ll be Tuesday night between seven and ten pm.”

Kun froze and blinked at Johnny in astonishment. “How...how do you know that?”

“Taeil was an RA in this building,” he explained with a smile. “He told us all the secrets. We knew exactly what RAs look for and how to hide them.”

Ten looked over at Taeyong with an expression of utter betrayal. “And you never told me! I could have been hiding all kinds of good sh--”

“ _ Ten,”  _ Kun and Johnny scolded at the same time. 

“--Stuff,” Ten sighed before he looked to Kun. “Can you and Johnny stop being so married for fifteen minutes? It’s starting to freak me out a little.”

“It never came up!” Taeyong protested from where he was positioned in Ten’s arms. “What, am I gonna just casually bring it up in the middle of a random conversation? You know now!”

Ten huffed, and for a moment it dawned on Kun that two of the most pouty, petulant people he had ever met were now in a committed relationship. Lord help them all. 

“Johnny and I don’t act married,” Kun countered. But it was hard to defend his own statement when Johnny was currently sitting on the floor with his son and wiping crumbs off of his face. 

“We act a little married,” Johnny chuckled before pressing a kiss to Chenle’s forehead. 

If Johnny was alright with that, then it was more than fine by Kun. 

“If you want,” Johnny said, looking back over to Kun with a small smile, “I can take Chenle out for i-c-e c-r-e-a-m or something so you can get some work done. Give the other babysitters a break.”

Kun chuckled. He was glad Johnny had thought to spell out  _ ice cream  _ rather than say it out loud. He had caught on quickly to the way Chenle behaved. If he heard that treats were an option, he wouldn’t let it out of his head until the ice cream was in his hands. Lucky for them, the toddler was still too young to spell. He knew something was being hidden from him, and he didn’t appreciate it, he also had yet to figure out what was actually going on. Kun was going to hold onto that for as long as he possibly could. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Kun frowned. “I can take care of it--”

“Kun,” Doyoung said, looking at him with pursed lips and a raised eyebrow. 

Kun sighed. He’d had a conversation with Doyoung recently about how he was nervous to leave Chenle alone with Johnny. He knew it would be fine. But in all of Chenle’s life, he had only been alone with a small handful of people. So the idea of leaving him with someone new, even if it was someone he trusted wholeheardtedly, made him nervous. Something could go wrong.  _ Anything  _ could go wrong. 

But this was Johnny. Johnny, who loved Chenle and already took such good care of him. Johnny, who bought Chenle pjs he thought he might like and sang him songs and knew just how the toddler liked to play. Kun knew that if he left the two of them alone together that everything would be just fine. And if it wasn’t, Kun was just a phonecall away. He had nothing to worry about. 

So Kun did something difficult. He nodded. “Yeah. That sounds like a geat idea, Johnny. I’m sure Lele would like that a lot. It’s good for him to get out. I worry about him being cooped up in here all the time. It means a lot.”

“Of course,” Johnny grinned. He looked back over to Chenle and gave his tummy another tickle. “Lele and I are gonna have so much fun without Baba, aren’t we?”

Chenle laughed. Something about hearing Johnny refer to him as “Baba” made Kun’s heart to gymnastics inside his chest. He supposed it was because it meant Johnny was a part of this. All of it was a new adventure for Kun and Chenle. And he couldn’t wait to see where it would bring them in the future. 

“Okay!” Ten chimed. “Now that Kun’s panic is averted, and Johnny’s being domestic as heck, can we wrap this up? Yongie and I have a date to go on and I refuse to be late to the movies.”

Doyoung rolled his eyes at that statement. “Like you aren’t going to sit in the back of the theater and make out like high schoolers anyway.”

“What’s ‘make out’, Uncle Doie?” Chenle chimed. 

Kun shot Doyoung a glare and decided to teach him a lesson. Doyoung’s pleading expression wasn’t going to do him any good this time. “Why don’t you tell him, Uncle Doie?”

“Ah, Chenle…” Doyound stalled. “It’s when...two people like each other very much...and they need to be very close all the time.” Doyoung winced. He knew it was a poor excuse for an explanation, but Chenle seemed to be satisfied with the answer regardless. 

“Baba and Johnny make out all the time!” Chenle declared. 

Kun decided the only thing keeping him from wanting to vaguely die in that moment was the fact that if something happened to him, Chenle had no legal caregivers and would therefore go into an orphanage or foster home, and he had spent too much time and energy  _ avoiding  _ a fate like that for his son to give it up now. But the way his friends had erupted into hysterics made the idea of vanishing into thin air seem pretty promising. 

It was true, though, that Johnny and Kun had gotten particularly clingy since they had become an official “item”, as it were. It was like Kun had been starving for something, but hadn’t known what, and now that he had it again, the idea of letting it go felt like it would kill him. Being able to snuggle with Chenle was one thing. But physical affection from someone who had romantic feelings for you was something unparalleled. So maybe he was a bit touchier now than he had been in the past. He couldn’t help it. 

Especially not when Johnny looked so good with his son. 

“All jokes aside,” Taeyong said with a stretch as he stood up. “We  _ do  _ have to get going. Bye-Bye, Chenle!” Taeyong offered Chenle a little wave, which Chenle happily returned. Chenle’s circle of influence seemed to be growing larger by the day, which concerned Kun to no end, but it was also good to see him with people. At the end of the day, he was no different than any other parent. He just wanted to show his son off to the world like everyone else. 

The whole world was still something of a pipe dream. But at least he could brag about him to their inner circle. For now, that could be enough. 

The friends that had been called in to help Kun through his panic slowly filed out, leaving Kun alone with Chenle and Johnny. Chenle was tiring out now, though he was trying hard not to show it. Having that many people around expended a lot of his energy. He was now sagging in Johnny’s arms, his eyelids drooping as he fought sleep. Johnny responded by wrapping protective arms around him and carrying him into bed. When Johnny tried to leave him there, Chenle whined and pulled him by the sleeve. 

Johnny was a weak man. So he chuckled and accompanied Chenle in bed. Whatever work he still had to do could wait until later. It hardly felt important when Chenle needed to go down for a nap. 

Kun thought his heart was going to burst at the sight. He couldn’t help but pull his phone out for a picture, lest someday he forget what moments like this looked like. Johnny tried to protest, but Kun wouldn’t hear it. These were the moments that made everything worthwhile. He wasn’t about to let them go so easily. 

Then again, they had plenty of time to have many more. 


	9. Molto Vivace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Johnny Seo, you know I hate surprises,” Kun chastised with a pout as he sat down in the library next to Johnny.   
> “You’re gonna like this one, I promise,” Johnny said as he reached into his backpack and pulled out an envelope and handed it over to Kun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're so close to the end now, and it's so bittersweet! I'll make a longer thank you on the final chapter, but thank you so much again for all the warmth this gets, I hope you enjoy this and the finale <3

“Johnny Seo, you know I hate surprises,” Kun chastised with a pout as he sat down in the library next to Johnny. The two had taken to meeting in the same secluded corner where Kun had once found his now boyfriend having something of a mental breakdown. It meant that the two of them could talk about whatever they wanted without fear of prying ears. 

“You’re gonna like this one, I promise,” Johnny said as he reached into his backpack and pulled out an envelope and handed it over to Kun. 

Kun glared at Johnny as he opened the envelope, but gasped when he finally read over its contents. His hands started to shake as his eyes welled up with tears. 

_ Dear Mr. Seo,  _

_ We’d be delighted to accept your son, Chenle, into our school. He seems like a bright, energetic young boy and will fit in well with the rest of the students. Attached is a list of required supplies. He will begin on Monday at 8 am. We look forward to seeing him.  _

_ Best wishes,  _

_ Hyuna Kim  _

“Johnny…” Kun sighed as he looked over to his boyfriend. “How...I’ve been looking for  _ ages,  _ there’s been no openings anywhere.”

“Taeil works at that school,” Johnny explained. “I told him to keep me updated if there were any openings. I told him it was for a friend, which isn’t  _ technically  _ a lie. I emailed Miss Kim asking if I could take Chenle to see the school the day Taeil told me a kid had moved out of town. She said yes, I took him the day you had room checks, Chenle loved it, here we are.”

“I can never thank you enough for this,” Kun said, his eyes fixated on the words “Mr. Seo” and “your son, Chenle”. “How much is it?” he asked. “I need to know how many extra hours I need to take up at work.”

Johnny shook his head with a wide grin. “You think I didn’t think of that? Please, I’m a budding anthropologist, Kun, I’m  _ excellent  _ at research. Chenle has a full scholarship due to a local fund for single parents putting themselves through school.”

“Oddly specific,” Kun hummed with furrowed eyebrows. 

“Are you gonna question it?” Johnny laughed. “Trust me, if you can think of something, there’s an applicable scholarship. You just have to look for it. I can drive him there before my eight ams, and you can pick him up after work. No more long days in the dorms. No more making Ten, Doyoung, and Taeyong babysit.”

Kun broke down into sobs, clinging tightly to Johnny. He was aware of the fact that he was likely ruining the other’s shirt with his tears, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. Johnny had just given him the greatest gifts he could ever have asked for: Chenle’s freedom, and the beginnings of Chenle’s education. Chenle never complained about it, but he was a lonely child. His only friends were adults, and he only ever knew the four walls of Kun’s dorm. This was going to change everything. Chenle could have friends his own age. He could go on playdates, he could go to birthday parties, he could  _ learn  _ in an environment with people who knew how to teach him properly. 

Chenle could have a future. He didn’t have to hide anymore. 

“God, I love you,” Kun sobbed into Johnny’s shoulder. 

Johnny, to his credit, simply rubbed Kun’s back and smiled. “I love you too. And I love Chenle. And I can’t wait to hear his stories from school.”

“Me neither,” Kun sniffed, finally picking his head up so that he could look at Johnny properly. As if it hadn’t been plenty clear before, Kun knew in that moment that he was going to marry Johnny Seo someday. He didn’t know when. Likely not for many years to come. Kun had to go for his masters degree, and Johnny might very well do the same. And then they would both need to get settled in their careers, and find a place to live. Chenle would likely be well into elementary school by the time the two of them got married.

But Kun  _ would  _ marry him someday. That much was certain. And he was more than happy with that. 

*******************************

“Bet I can beatcha to the swing set,” Chenle taunted. 

“Bet you can’t,” Johnny taunted back with a larger-than-life grin on his face. 

“You two wanna race for it?” Kun asked, his heart melting at the mere interaction between two of his favorite people in the entire world. 

Chenle beamed up at him and nodded. It wasn’t often that the child got to go to the park. But they were celebrating that Sunday. Chenle was going to start his first day of preschool the next day. They had spent that morning getting him new school supplies, and Kun had never seen one person so excited to go to school before. Kun couldn’t blame him. He was excited  _ for _ Chenle. 

Almost as excited as he was to watch the long-limbed gentle giant that was Johnny attempt to race his son to the swings. 

“On your mark,” Kun said, chuckling as he watched the two brace themselves to run. Kun had never seen Chenle look so determined before, and Johnny wasn’t actually much different. 

“Get set...go!”

Chenle sped off like a bullet towards the swing set on the other side of the small playground they had gone to. Johnny, on the other hand, took quick but small steps that meant that he was trailing behind the toddler--but not by too much, because he didn’t want Chenle to  _ know  _ he had let him win. Johnny was a smart man. 

Kun walked behind them both, grinning as he watched the scene unfold. He cheered along with Chenle as the reached the swings before Johnny did. Johnny bent over himself panting when he finally got there. 

“Well gosh, Chenle, you beat me!” he said, breathing heavily as if he was amazed by this feat. “You’re the fastest kid there is!”

“I know,” Chenle replied with a confident smile before he turned to Kun. He raised his arms and made grabby hands at him. “Baba! Push me! Please!”

“Alright, alright,” Kun laughed as he lifted Chenle into one of the baby swings--which he was really starting to get a little too big for, but try telling  _ him  _ that. And perhaps, too, there was a point to which Kun wasn’t entirely ready to admit that his son was growing up and would eventually not fit in the smaller swings at all. He was going to hold on to the little things for as long as he could. 

Johnny sat down in the bigger swing closest to Chenle and smiled over at him. “Feels like you’re flying, huh Lele?”

“I  _ am  _ flying!” Chenle insisted as Kun pushed him. “Like Superman!”

“You sure are, kiddo,” Johnny grinned. “Super Lele!”

“Super Lele!” Chenle agreed with a laugh. 

Kun was feeling selfish that day, as was increasingly the case since Johnny came into his life. And he couldn’t help but stand there, watching Johnny swing the same height as Chenle but in opposite directions so that he could make funny faces at him while they crossed paths, and feel at home in this moment of domesticity. Whatever he had done right in a past life to deserve moments like this, he was thankful for it. Because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could have gotten by without someone in his life. He had just been getting too lonely. 

But he wasn’t lonely anymore. And neither was Chenle. And starting tomorrow, Chenle would be even less lonely. The child would never really be alone again. He would have friends he could actually relate to. He would start to have the fundamental experiences that made up childhood. And maybe this time next year, the three of them wouldn’t be living in dorm rooms, but together in an apartment. Chenle could spend his formative years in an environment that was actually good for him. Kun had thought he was going to have to wait much later for anything of the sort. But the impossible seemed all the more likely now that he had Johnny.

Kun couldn’t wait to watch it all happen. 

*****************

Johnny had a feeling that Kun would be reluctant to let his child go on the first day of school. The toddler didn’t have the separation anxiety that Kun had feared he would. In fact, he was buzzing around the dorm room as he got ready to leave. He insisted on dressing himself with minimal help from either of the adults, and had picked out his own outfit--a rather ridiculous show of blue corduroy pants with a bright green t-shirt with a dinosaur on it. 

Kun, on the other hand, had bitten his nails to the beds as he watched Chenle flit about the room. It was, Johnny understood, the first time they would be separated for such an extended period of time. And Chenle wouldn’t be on campus. Johnny could understand why Kun was so frightened. But at the same time, Johnny had to hold in his laughter from the fact that it was  _ Kun  _ who was experiencing the separation anxiety. He checked--then double checked--then  _ triple  _ checked Chenle’s backpack to make sure he had a spare set of clothes, a mini first aid kit, and likely a dozen other things he didn’t need  _ just in case something happens.  _

“He’s going to be fine, love,” Johnny assured as he sat down on the bed next to Kun. “He’s going to have a great time at school. And you can actually get your work done before three in the morning. What a concept, huh?”

“Yeah,” Kun sighed as he watched Chenle bounce around to find Stringbean, who he had placed somewhere and then forgotten the location. “I’m just going to miss him.”

“I know,” Johnny said, pressing a kiss to Kun’s temple. “He’ll miss you too. But this is so good for him.”

Kun knew that was true. And when it all came down to it, he was so _ proud  _ of Chenle. Kun was thrilled to see the delightful child he was growing into. It made him laugh to see how fiercely independent his son was in the face of little things like picking out his clothes and deciding what to eat. He couldn’t wait to hear all the stories of his adventures at school, and he would delight in decorating his dorm with his son’s artwork. 

But that didn’t make this moment any less difficult for him. He still smiled as he watched Johnny pull Chenle onto his shoulders, much to the toddler’s delight. Chenle was starting something great. And this wasn’t going to be easy. But nothing was when it came to parenting. 

“Come on, Lele,” Johnny said as he grabbed Chenle’s backpack. “Say bye to Baba, it’s time for school!”

“Time for school!” Chenle repeated with a grin. He reached his arm out and waved feverishly down to Kun. “Bye-bye, Baba!”

“Bye-bye, Chenle,” Kun returned, waving to him as Johnny ducked the two of them out the door. 

When the door closed, Kun was alone in his dorm for the first time since he had brought Chenle here. It didn’t feel right. The air felt stiff and suddenly silence had never seemed so loud before. Kun took a deep breath as he looked around. It was fine. Everything was going to be fine. This was a period of growth. Growth was a good thing. It was alright that his dorm was a little quiet for the time being. It was a good thing. Kun could get ready for his classes without having to pause to give Chenle food, or get him dressed, or look at whatever his son thought was  _ very important  _ and needed to be seen. He could take his time. He wouldn’t accidentally put his clothes on backwards, or wear something with a stain. 

He could be, dare he say it, a normal twenty-something in college. Just for the morning. But it was longer than he had been able to do that for a long time. 

Kun decided he didn’t like being a normal twenty-something very much.

He was able to get ready in a quarter of the time that it normally took, which left him more than enough free time to get ahead in his schoolwork as he used to do. It felt foreign, somehow, even though this used to be his regular routine. Things had changed for him so much that he wasn’t sure he would be able to recognize his old self if the two crossed paths in the halls. Which wasn’t to say that the old Kun was bad and the new Kun was better, they were just different. They wanted different things and had alternate plans for their futures. It was amusing to think about now. 

Because old Kun relished in quiet mornings like this, sipping his coffee as he read case studies he would have to write about later in the week. But new Kun thought this was boring. It felt lifeless. He felt lethargic just sitting around and not running after a two year old. How did he get on like this for so long happily? He could hardly even remember. He supposed it didn’t matter. He was just going to have to get used to it again. He had done it once, he could do it again. 

When he finally head over to his class, he looked down at his phone when he felt it buzz in his pocket. He couldn’t help but beam down at what he saw. Johnny had texted him a picture of Chenle grinning in front of his classroom. Kun melted. Chenle looked so happy that Kun felt guilty for feeling a little lonely without him. He saved the picture and thanked Johnny--he knew Chenle could be something of a brat when it came to staying still long enough to be photographed. Johnny replied that he thought Kun would want to have documentation of this moment. 

He couldn’t have been more right. 

*****

Kun was nervous to pick Chenle up from school. He was certain he was going to be the youngest parent there. Kun had never socialized with other parents before--mostly because he didn’t feel like facing their judgement. People always had something to say, and he didn’t want to hear it. He was doing what he needed to for his child, and that was the end of that. 

He didn’t know how Johnny had handled the morning. Standing outside the classroom with the other parents, Kun felt impossibly small. The other mothers chattered about things like soccer teams, and carpools, and whether they should start packing organic snacks. Kun stood by himself and hoped that no one would try to speak to him. 

Any fears or worries he had vanished completely when the children came out of the classroom. He smiled when he saw Chenle--Stringbean in tow, of course--walk confidently out and searched out his father. When the two of them locked eyes, Chenle broke into a grin and sprinted over to him, barreling into his legs. “Baba!” he chimed. 

“Hey, Lele,” Kun said as he picked Chenle up into his arms. “How was school? Did you have fun?”

“Yeah!” he said excitedly. “Miss Kim read us a story, and we had cookies for snack, and I can write my name! Kinda! I’m learnin!” 

“You sure are, baby,” Kun smiled. “Are you making any friends? Did you meet anyone nice?”

Chenle nodded enthusiastically. “Uh-huh! Everyone’s real nice. Except Jack he--he tried to take Stringbean, that wasn’t nice.”

“No it wasn’t,” Kun agreed. “Did he say sorry?”

Chenle pouted. “Kinda. Miss Kim made him say sorry for grabbing, but she also said I should share, so I got mad.”

Kun nodded. He might have to have a conversation with his teacher about the status of Stringbean as Chenle’s comfort object. He knew that he would have to start weaning the child away from bringing the dinosaur everywhere but...it felt like it could wait a little while longer. Maybe that was part of Kun’s problem. He was too indulgent towards Chenle’s habits. He didn’t have a sense of urgency because it didn’t feel like a crime for him to let his child be a child. 

“Well, I’ll talk to Miss Kim, okay? Or Johnny will. For now, let’s get back home. You can have a snack and watch some tv. How does that sound?”

“Yeah!” Chenle chimed with a grin. 

As they left, Chenle waved happily to kids who he had apparently made friends with during his first day at school. It didn’t surprise Kun at all that he had been so quickly social. He was an extrovert by nature, and made friends fast and easy. That comforted Kun. He wasn’t isolated because he was the new kid. He was fitting in just fine with everyone else. He was in school and starting a big part of his future. Kun was just happy they were getting started. 


	10. Sempre Piu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kun figured Sunday was his favorite day of the week. He used to absolutely dread them, with the promise of classes the next day and a week of stress looming over his last free day of the weekend. But in the weeks since Chenle had started preschool, that had all changed.
> 
> Sunday had become family day, as it were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end, folks! It's so hard to believe. But thank you all for all of the love this fic has gotten. I'm not great and replying to comments, but I read every single one, and I can't even begin to describe the joy in my heart that I get when I see that people adore this fic. 
> 
> So thank you for joining me, Johnny, Kun, and Chenle on this journey. I hope you've had as much fun as I did.

Kun figured Sunday was his favorite day of the week. He used to absolutely dread them, with the promise of classes the next day and a week of stress looming over his last free day of the weekend. But in the weeks since Chenle had started preschool, that had all changed. 

Now, Sundays were a day of both excitement and leisure, as dichotomous as those two ideas seemed to be. Kun and his son would take the opportunity to sleep in, and by the time they were easing awake, there would be a knock on Kun’s door. Kun would smile from bed and Chenle would immediately bolt up and run to the door. 

Sunday had become family day, as it were. 

Johnny would always come around and spend the day with them, help get Chenle ready for school the next day, but mostly the three of them would laze around and watch cartoons. Sometimes Johnny or Kun would pull out a textbook and attempt to get some reading done. Maybe one of them would type away at their laptops while Paw Patrol was playing. But even the two of them knew that nothing substantial would get done. And that was alright. They didn’t have to. Sunday was a day for taking their time. 

Kun had Chenle in his lap while they watched whatever the toddler wanted--Kun never really had any idea what was going on, but he made sure to “ooh” and “aah” at the right moments whenever Chenle prompted it--when they heard the knock on the door this time. 

“I got it!” Chenle chimed as he ran to the door. 

Kun smiled and shifted around so that he could see the door as it opened. Seeing the pure height of Johnny in comparison to his tiny toddler would amuse Kun every single time he saw it. It always made him want to laugh. But there was something incredibly endearing about seeing such a large man with a child. Especially when the child was his. 

“Good morning, Lele,” Johnny said as he scooped the child up and walked into the room. “How’s my favorite kid in the whole wide world today?”

Chenle giggled as he wriggled around in Johnny’s arms. “Good!” he smiled. 

Johnny plopped himself down on the floor next to Kun and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “And how’s my favorite guy in the whole wide world today?” he asked with a hum. 

“I’m telling Taeyong you said that,” Kun teased. “He’ll never let you live it down that you’re choosing your boyfriend of two months over your best friend of almost four years.”

“Taeyong can deal with it,” Johnny teased in return. “He’s too busy being starry-eyed over Ten these days anyway. I swear he’s hardly ever in our room anymore. I think he’s probably about halfway moved into Ten’s by now.”

Kun laughed at that, but the two of them could relate. Johnny was over more often than he wasn’t these days. It was just...easy. And maybe it should have scared him how quickly they had moved into something so domestic and committed, but it didn’t. He was happy. They were happy. And at the end of the day, Kun figured that was the only thing that mattered. 

“Let’s all do lunch sometime this week, okay?” Kun said. “Figure out when Taeil has off so he can come too. I know Yuta gets all whiney when he’s the only one without his partner.”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Johnny smiled. Johnny, as a whole, was satisfied by how the two groups of friends who, before Taeyong and Ten had started their escapades, had never spent too much time together seemed to fit effortlessly now. It made him wonder how they had gone so long like this, seemingly dancing so closely together, but never making the final leap. It didn’t matter. They were together now. And maybe it was the hubris of youth speaking, but Johnny truly believed that they were going to stay like this for the longer side of forever.

It was easy to feel that way when living like this felt so simple. For the first time since Johnny had started college, he didn’t feel like he had to worry about what his next steps were going to be. Wherever life may decide to lead him, he had something solid that would keep him grounded and assure him that everything would work out just fine. Maybe that was what he had been looking for all along. 

Now that he had it, it all seemed fairly obvious. Which reminded him…

“Oh, I have good news,” Johnny hummed with a smile. “Okay, several pieces of good news. Which do you want to hear first? The part that has to do with you, or the part that doesn’t?”

“The part that doesn’t,” Kun replied. 

“Figures,” Johnny scoffed, though he was wholly amused. “Well, to start off, I have officially applied to my first graduate school.”

“Johnny, that’s incredible!” Kun beamed. “You’ll get in, no doubt. We’ll all go celebrate when you do.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Johnny said with a roll of his eyes. “I’m going to apply to a couple more, just in case. But I’m getting the ball rolling at least.”

“I’m really proud of you,” Kun said, reaching over to give Johnny’s arm a squeeze. 

“Wanna hear the part about you now?”

“If I have to.”

“You’re the worst,” Johnny laughed. “You know how you were planning on spending winter break here in the dorm?”

Kun nodded, though his smile dipped a bit. Johnny had been heartbroken when he heard how the pair were forced to remain on campus all year because Kun’s parents had all but excommunicated him. Ten’s parents would have them over for a weekend or so every now and again, but they spent the majority of a month cooped up in this one room all on their own. Even Christmas. Johnny wouldn’t have that. 

“Well, you don’t have to,” Johnny replied. “My parents said you and Chenle are  _ both  _ welcome to stay with us the whole time.”

“You told your parents about Chenle?” Kun asked, completely taken aback. 

“Well I had to explain why my boyfriend would be bringing a toddler over,” Johnny shrugged. 

“Oh my god, Johnny, what did they say?”

“They...weren’t thrilled at first,” Johnny admitted. Which was a bit of an understatement. Johnny’s father had spent the first half hour on the phone scolding him for threatening to throw his whole future away by signing up to be a parent at almost twenty two. But when Johnny had made it clear that he was continuing his education and had no plans on putting his life on halt, the man had relaxed a bit. His mother had helped on that front, explaining to Mr. Seo that Kun must clearly be a kind and dedicated young man if he had been raising this child on his own for two years  _ and  _ was keeping up his education and working. After many long hours of conversation over the span of a week, his parents had given his support and would welcome the young parent and his son into their home with open arms. 

“But they knew I wasn’t about to back down or leave. And they’d love to meet you and Chenle. So this is a great opportunity for that. And you can spend Christmas with a family for a change.”

Kun took a shuddering breath. “Do you like making me cry, Johnny Seo? Is that your job?”

“Baba can’t cry!” Chenle protested, finally chiming into the conversation. He jabbed a tiny and accusatory finger into Johnny’s chest. “You’re not allowed to make Baba cry!”

Johnny laughed at that and pulled Chenle into his own lap. “Well, if  _ you  _ say I can’t make Baba cry, then I guess I won’t. But how does that sound, Lele? Do you think you and Baba wanna come spend Christmas with me and my parents?”

Chenle looked excitedly over to Kun, and Kun was immediately overwhelmed with the warmth and brightness in his eyes. Chenle had never had a real Christmas before. Doyoung and Ten would come over in the evenings, when they were done with the festivities with their own families. But it wasn’t the same. Chenle had never had a real Christmas tree, or a big dinner, or any of the other things that made Christmas what it was. This was his chance. It was one of the few things Kun hadn’t been able to give him yet that he felt supreme guilt over. Who would he be to take this away from him?

“I think that sounds really nice,” Kun smiled. “Don’t you, Lele?”

“Yeah!” Chenle chimed. 

“Lele’s going to be on his best behavior, since we’re going to be  _ guests,  _ right Lele?”

Chenle nodded excitedly. Kun knew that he was likely going to have something of a hard time roping the toddler in at first, and he hoped Mr. and Mrs. Seo would forgive him for it. But this would be a very new and exciting experience for Chenle. 

It would be new and exciting for Kun, too. This would be the start of something potentially incredible. It would be the first year of hopefully many that this little family would start to build traditions of their own to carry into the future with them. Kun didn’t know exactly what that would mean for any of them yet. But he was excited to learn. He had ideas--plenty of them, traditions he had wanted to build with Chenle since before he was born that had fallen through the cracks due to their circumstances. Nights baking cookies, fancy hot chocolates, decorating the tree.

The idea that they could actually have that was somewhat overwhelming. The only way Kun could think to express his gratitude to Johnny in that moment was to kiss him, which made Chenle make loud noises of protest as he always did when the two of them decided to show some form of affection in front of the toddler. It was both amusing and a tiny bit annoying, but Kun didn’t really mind it. It was just another little thing that Kun would be able to use to tease Chenle when he got older. He was going to hold on to all of those little things while he still could. 

“Baba! Stop bein gross with dad!”

Johnny and Kun both froze for a moment, looked to each other, and then looked back to Chenle. 

“Chenle, what did you just say?” Kun asked, his heart racing in his chest. 

Chenle shrank in on himself a little bit, looking sheepishly down at his hands. “I said you gotta stop bein gross with dad, but ‘m sorry!”

“No, no, Lele, don’t be sorry,” Kun insisted, not wanting Chenle to think he had done anything wrong when he hadn’t. He had just thrown the young adults for a loop. “You called Johnny dad?”

“Miss Kim at school calls him dad,” Chenle explained, still not looking either of them in the eye. “You’re Baba, and he’s dad. Right?”

Kun looked up at Johnny and was certain that he wouldn’t be able to hear anything the other said over the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. It was up to Johnny, at the end of the day, what he wanted to be called by Chenle and his teachers. They could always correct Miss Kim, tell her that Johnny wasn’t Chenle’s dad and that it was alright for Chenle to call him by his first name. But that was  _ Johnny’s  _ choice to make. And the other seemed to be having an internal battle with himself as the trio sat in silence for a moment while he made up his mind about it. 

“You’re right, Chenle,” Johnny ultimately decided. “You can call me dad if you want to. If that’s okay with Baba, that is.” Johnny looked up at Kun, as if to ask permission for this title. Kun felt that the title wasn’t really his to give. It was Chenle’s, and Chenle had already made up his mind about it. 

“It’s perfectly fine with me,” Kun promised as he smiled at Johnny.

Kun decided there was nothing he wanted more in the world than to bottle up this moment. He wished he could keep it in a jar and open it on the days when everything seemed dark, empty, and lost. The days when he wondered if any of this was worth it. The days when he felt like he couldn’t do anything right. 

He  _ had  _ done something right. He got Chenle. He got Johnny. Maybe his family was small, fragile, and imperfect. But it was his. Nothing and nobody could take that away from him. Maybe Chenle would only have one set of grandparents instead of the three he should have. Maybe he would only ever have a vague and distant relationship with his mother. 

But he had two dads. And an ever-growing pile of uncles. And all of these people in Chenle’s sphere of influence loved him unconditionally. Even his teacher had recently expressed her joy in having the toddler in her classroom now. She said that he brought a light and enthusiasm that reminded her why she had gone into this job in the first place. 

That had made Kun feel good. He had helped raise Chenle that way. And as rough as their situation had been, it meant that Chenle enjoyed the little things in life with a fervor that was unparalleled. Kun hoped he would never lose that sense of wonder. He hoped that the world wouldn’t make him cold. 

Chenle beamed and perked up in Johnny’s arms. Maybe Kun would never fully understand what was going through his son’s mind in those moments. But he supposed he didn’t have to. The trio was happy. They were enjoying their new Sunday routine and planning their month away from campus at Johnny’s place. They were beginning to plan a future. And that idea was, admittedly, a little reckless for a group of people as young as they were. 

Kun didn’t care. Because if there was anything he had learned from bringing Chenle into his life, it was that sometimes the most reckless decisions were absolutely worth it. 

“Well!” Johnny chimed before hoisting himself off the ground and pulling Chenle up with him. Johnny spoiled Chenle in this way--Kun didn’t have the time or energy to carry him as much as he liked. Johnny, on the other hand, seemed to have never-ending strength for it. Which meant that Chenle’s royal little feet never had to touch the ground if he didn’t want them to. The parent part of Kun wanted to tell Johnny that it was okay for Chenle to walk around sometimes. 

But how long would Chenle  _ really  _ be able to be carried anyway?

“Enough of this sap fest,” Johnny decided as he carried Chenle over to his little area of the dorm room where his things for school were kept. “We’ve gotta pack up for school tomorrow, huh? Isn’t it show and tell?”

“Yeah!” Chenle beamed. “Miss Kim said I gotta bring my favorite thing. But Stringbean doesn’t count because I bring him everywhere anyway.” The pout on Chenle’s face told Kun that he had likely had something of an argument with his teacher about this fact. And Kun was inclined to side with his son on the matter. So what if Stringbean was a common sight in the classroom? The fact that he was practically glued to Chenle’s hand further solidified that this object  _ was  _ his favorite thing. 

“Well that’s not fair,” Johnny agreed as he set Chenle down on the floor and squatted down to his height so that he could look him in the eye while they talked. “Can you think of anything else you might like to bring?”

Chenle hummed as he thought about this, pacing around the room and picking up the few things that were his, turning them about in his little hands as he considered them before he inevitably put them back down again and shook his head. It amuse Kun greatly how seriously Chenle was taking this activity. But he supposed if this was supposed to be his most favorite thing (aside from Stringbean), it had to be something very important. 

Chenle came back over to where Kun was sitting and stood in front of him for a moment with his hands on his hips before he spoke. “Can Baba and Dad come in for show and tell? You’re my favorites!”

Kun melted and couldn’t help but coo as he scooped up his kid and peppered his face in kisses. “Oh, Lele, I wish. But I’m afraid that’s not how it works. You have to pick a  _ thing,  _ not people.”

“Not fair!” Chenle pouted. “Stringbean, and Baba, and Dad  _ are  _ my favorites!”

“I know, Lele,” Kun said as he brushed the toddler’s hair away from his face. “But you’re going to have to pick something else.”

“That sucks!” Chenle whined. 

Kun’s jaw dropped while Johnny burst into hysterics. 

“Chenle, where did you hear that before?” Kun asked, halfway incredulous and halfway trying not to laugh himself. 

Chenle was smiling, seeming to notice that whatever he had done, it was funny, and he always liked making other people laugh. “Uncle Ten says it all the time!” 

“Of course he does,” Kun said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I really have to have a talk with Uncle Ten about what he says around you.”

“Oh there’s no harm in it,” Johnny said, still chuckling a bit. “Now come here, Lele. We still have to figure out what you’re bringing for show and tell. And then we can all go out for ice cream. How does that sound?”

“Ice cream!” Chenle beamed as he hopped out of Kun’s lap and ran back over to Johnny. Johnny chuckled and ruffled Chenle’s hair, much like he had done in the supermarket when the pair had first met. 

Kun smiled from where he sat, hugging his knees to his chest as he watched Johnny and Chenle prepare for school the next day. 

It had been a while since Kun Qian could say that he had a strong sense of family. But he could say it now. And that felt good. 


End file.
